April 2003

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What was that question again?

Filed under: Imported

The results of an in-depth probe of American attitudes about the war on terror and individual liberties post-September 11 revealed some bizarre anomalies.  Thirty-three percent of people polled believe that the "war on terror" is strengthening their rights, 22 % says it is having no impact, and 19% believe it is eroding rights.

But when questioned about their support or key provisions of the Patriot Act that subvert those rights, an overwhelming number--between 70 and 80 percent--rejected the principles of these intrusions.

The pollsters suggest that the respondents are not aware that the provisions they loathe are part of The Patriot Act and are undermining their rights, a possibility attributable to the media's dearth of attention to the law until recently.

They obviously have not been following Civil Liberties Watch.

 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 30, 2003 8:45 PM

 

Too Many "Watch" Lists: How About One Big Black List?

Filed under: Imported

The GAO says that all these watch, no-fly, no-entry, no-go, lists have got to go. Too confusing. We need one big black list of all suspicious persons. 

Read the GAO recommendation. 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 30, 2003 3:17 PM

 

Young Black Men May Not Enter Here

Filed under: Imported

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the case of  Virginia v. Hicks.  The case arose out of a young black man's conviction for trespassing on public housing property in Richmond, Virginia.  Kevin Hicks served a year in jail for his crime--visiting, he says, the mother of his child to deliver diapers for the baby.

The housing authority, to deter crime it says, issues warning notices to undesirables to stay off the property, including sidewalks. Not surprisingly, most who are warned off are young, black men, suspected of being the drug-dealing "type."  Entry after notice constitutes cause for arrest for criminal trespass. Hicks spent a year in jail for his crime, before the Supreme Court of Virginia found the regulation a violation of the First Amendment. 

The housing authority appealed to the Supreme Court.  Hicks and various friends of the court ("amici") filed briefs arguing that the policy was a violation of rights of speech, association, and due process.

This case brings home the comment of a friend of mine, a young black man himself who teaches American history at Michigan State University. He reads my rantings and ravings about the post-September 11 loss of liberties and muses, "We {young and black} never had that kind of freedom to lose."

Read Julie Hilden's insightful analysis on the case in Findlaw's Writ.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 30, 2003 3:09 PM

 

Do I Know You? Biometrics to Aid the "War on Terror"

Filed under: Imported

According to a report in today's New York Times, immigration authorites have in place biometric identification procedures that will scan faces and other "body parts" to identify "certain" foreign visitors at airports, ports, and other border crossings. All in the name of fighting "terror."

How terrible looking do you have to be to be nabbed as a terrorist?

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 30, 2003 5:56 AM

 

TIA Is NOT Dead!

Filed under: Imported

Americans (including this blogger) have been led to believe that the Pointdexter Total Information Awareness program was DOA. Not so, according to this report that details funding of a multi-million dollar study to develop software that will weed out the terrorists from the non-terrorists in the data bank.

All in the name of protecting our privacy while collecting every bit of electronic data available on us. 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 30, 2003 5:52 AM

 

John Ashcroft In Contempt?

Filed under: Imported

Attorney General John Ashcroft doesn't care much for court orders or ethical rules that interfere with his way of looking at the law.  Read about how he and some of his prosecutors subvert fair trial rights in my article in today's Findlaw Writ.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 30, 2003 5:45 AM

 

Get in the Act before Congress Acts Again

Filed under: Imported

The Senate is considering a bill that would create greater powers for the secret FISA court. Go to this ACLU site and send a fax or email to your Senator to stop the encroaching powers of a court in which the identity of the judges are secret, the location of the court undisclosed, and the rules clandestine.

 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 29, 2003 8:35 PM

 

Detention of Inmates Post-Incarceration Upheld by Supreme Court

Filed under: Imported

The Supreme Court ruled today, in the case of Demore v. Kim, that immigration authorities can detain an immigrant pending deportation after release from incarceration.  In a case involving a legal resident alien, the court ruled that bail and habeas corpus relief can be denied while the government finds a country to accept the non-U.S. citizen. 

The 5-4 majority decision was further fractured by several confusing "dissent in part," "concur in part" opinions. Hard as they are to unravel, the news for immigrants is not good.

The decision upholds sweeping quasi-judicial powers granted to INS and DOJ in the Clinton administration, powers that have led to increasing burdens on immigrant populations. Some immigrants have lived here since children, and have no connections to the home of their birth, but because they never became naturalized citizens, they do not have the rights of U.S. citizens.

Read an analysis in The New York Times.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 29, 2003 2:10 PM

 

CBS Producer Fired for Recommending His Miniseries on Hitler

Filed under: Imported

From The Progressive's site, word that producer of the CBS miniseries on Hilter was fired for saying it was a good time to revisit Hitler's rise to power, given the times we live in.  The CBS suits said he was equating Bush with Hitler.  Were they engaging in Freudian projection?

Maximum irony here, apparently lost on CBS. 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 28, 2003 8:23 PM

 

FBI Creating Massive Data Base: TID

Filed under: Imported

Remember TIA (total information awareness)?  Masterminded by John Pointdexter, convicted of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra?  Homeland Security supposedly scratching the plan, due to such public outcry. But something even more sinister is afoot at the FBI. A massive database collecting all sorts of information (including news stories) and intelligence about people and known as TID - Terrorism Intelligence and Data. 

The FBI admits that civil liberties' "groups" won't like it. But, get this!  They tell us not to worry--for the CIA is watching over them to make sure they don't run afoul of the law!  What law?  Any laws we had on the side of liberties flew out the window with Patriot. 

Read all about it in a magazine for government executives. TID gives new meaning to the term "Orwellian."

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 28, 2003 8:06 PM

 

Hawaii Renounces Patriot Act

Filed under: Imported

We have written in this space about municipality and county governing bodies that have voted to not cooperate with federal law enforcement authorities who want them to engage in spying on their residents.  Hawaii has upped the ante--the state legislature voted similarly and renounced much of the Patriot Act, citing the state's collective memory of assaults on liberties in World War II.

Read this courageous resolution, subtitled "reaffirming the state of Hawaii's commitment to civil liberties and the Bill of Rights."

Can Ashcroft prosecute a state legislature?

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 28, 2003 5:30 PM

 

Booksellers to Buyers: Hold the Credit Cards, the FBI is Watching

Filed under: Imported

The USA Patriot Act gave wide powers to the FBI to obtain information about your reading habits without going through the bothersome pre-September 11 judicial procedures to obtain a search warrant.

Booksellers in Santa Cruz, California, whose city fathers have resolved not to cooperate with the Bush Administration's snooping on their residents, are posting signs warning book purchasers to pay cash, so they will have no paper trail when the FBI comes calling. And the local library shreds the records of daily computer usage so they, too, have nothing to offer the feds.

Do you think they will be prosecuted for aiding and abetting terrorism or obstruction of justice for not keeping records?  Records of purchases and Internet use are not required to be kept--yet. But there is still time to revise Patriot I, before it expires. And Patriot II waits in the wings. Read "The Other War" for background (link on this site).

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 28, 2003 6:53 AM

 

Strom Thurmond, Jr: Prosecuting with Vengeance

Filed under: Imported

There was plenty of consternation with Strom Thurmond, Sr., got one of his last Senatorial wishes granted--the patronage appointment of his young and inexperienced son, Strom, Jr., to be U.S. Attorney in Columbia, South Carolina.

Strom, Jr. is living up to his legacy. He is prosecuting locally well-known perennial protester Brett A. Bursey, for displaying an anti-war sign at the Columbia, South Carolina airport last fall when Bush made a campaign appearance.

Bursey is being prosecuted under an obscure federal law about entering a "restricted" area in the vicinity of a President, according to a story in today's New York Time.  Bursey is charged with doing no more than displaying a sign, "No War for Oil," standing behind a fence at the airport. But the Secret Service and airport authorities had designed an area for protest a half-mile away from hangar where Bush was to speak.

We better start paying attention to arrests like these. Wonder where the American Gulag will be? Guantanamo is getting pretty crowded.

 

 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 27, 2003 6:58 PM

 

City Univeristy of New York Law School Says "No" to Lynne Stewart

Filed under: Imported

City University of New York Law School (CUNY) fancies itself a promoter of public interest law. But when over half of its students chose attorney Lynne Stewart for its public interest lawyer of the year award, the Dean said no. Stewart, who has spent her life representing indigent and unpopular clients, is waiting trial on charges of aiding and abetting terrorism for activities she says were within her rights and obligations as an attorney.

Do you think the Dean would have minded if the students had chosen an Enron or WorldCom lawyer? 

Read my article on Lynne Stewart and John Ashcroft's assault on the 6th Amendment right to counsel.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 26, 2003 12:01 PM

 

Some Asylum: Lock 'Em Up For Life

Filed under: Imported

In an announcement that stretches the limits of logic, reason, decency, and legality, Attorney General Ashcroft announced yesterday that asylum seekers that reach our shores can be locked up indefinitely, without hearing, bond, or attorney, as long as their release might endanger "national security."  He overruled immigration appeals judges to reach this outrageous  result.

His underlying rationale?  The war on terror, of course.  Asylum seekers are a strain on national resources needed to fight the war on terror and locking them up will deter their "migration" to the U.S.

Last year, Ashcroft draped the statues depicting Justice at DOJ headquarters, the act itself a mockery of justice. What's next?  Dismantling the Statue of Liberty and turning Ellis Island into an internment camp?

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 25, 2003 11:31 AM

 

Whose Capitol? Not yours, if you are on "The List"

Filed under: Imported

This just in as your blogger was listening to National Public Radio.  The U.S. Capitol will resume allowing the people who pay for it, and whose Capitol it is, you and me, to visit the Capitol building but ONLY if we are not on some "NO VISIT" list.  Like the TSA "No Fly" list I wrote about on this site. Now you will be required to show a photo ID and be checked against "the list" prior to admittance.

Wonder how you get on the list? And wonder if Russell Weston, the deranged man who stormed the Capitol several years ago looking for "the Ruby Red Satellite" to save the world from cannibals would make such a list? Probably not, since the Administration does not "get it" that "terrorists" are not people who have "Muslim-sounding" names or demonstrate against the war, but are deranged people--psychotically or politically.

Watch this space as Civil Liberties tries to get to the bottom of this nonsense.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 25, 2003 10:21 AM

 

A Gun in Every Pocket

Filed under: Imported

Minnesotans will soon get to carry guns whenever and wherever (unless you are a felon or declared incompetent), if a law that passed the House gets through the Senate.  That should please John Ashcroft who, while taking away the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and most other civil liberties, takes the distorted view that the 2nd Amendment gives Americans the personal right to carry a gun. On the federal level, the ten-year ban on the interstate sale and transport of assault weapons ends in 2004, and the NRA has vowed to insure that it won't be reupped.

Arming every American is one civil liberty we can live without. 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 24, 2003 3:15 PM

 

Children in the Guantanamo Black Hole

Filed under: Imported

Following up on our report ealier this week that the Pentagon is holding teenagers as unlawful combatants in Guantanamo Bay, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is on the case, sending a letter to Rumsfeld urging him to release the detainees, said to be between the ages of 13 and 15.

HRW emphasizes that this conduct is an egregous violation of international law (no surprise there). We have been told that there have been at least 25 suicide attempts among the more than 600 detainees, who have been held for as long as 15 month without access to attorneys or family. Wonder how many have been among the youngest prisoners?  Read more about the black hole that is Guantanamo.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 24, 2003 3:06 PM

 

We Have a Little List--and the Truth Will Not be Missed

Filed under: Imported

You really have to hand it to the Bush Administration. It takes a lot of ____ (fill in the blank) to admit that it doesn't care whether the database it keeps on your alleged criminal activity is true or false.  Last month, the Justice Department exempted the FBI from the Privacy Act obligation to ensure the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of the 39 million records it maintains in its National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system. 

Read more about the NCIC system and its penchant for inaccuracy and join a public revolt against this outrageous government malfeasance by signing an online petition. 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 8:49 PM

 

Terrorism Threat Index? How About a Privacy Threat Index?

Filed under: Imported

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has established a "Privacy Threat Index" that uses the same color-coding system of the Homeland Security Administration's Advisory System for terrorist threats. Based on the current information, the Privacy Threat Index is at yellow, meaning "elevated."  Unlike the ephemeral reasons for Homeland Security's assignments of terrorist threat levels, EPIC's warnings are derived from all-too-real government attacks on several fronts, many of which you have read about on this page.

To learn more about immediate threats to your privacy and civil liberties, visit EPIC's website by clicking on the link to the right of this column.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 8:37 PM

 

You Can Ask, But We Won't Tell, Redux

Filed under: Imported

Refusing information about how your government goes about controlling information and snopping on you has gotten to be the norm.  The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) sought from the Pennsylvania Attorney General a list of Internet sites blocked by public libraries in Pennsylvania--access allegedly denied to keep porn out of reach of children.  CDT wants to know how many "legit" sites are blocked, suspecting that some overly-broad censoring is going on.  The AG is not  talking, so CDT is going to sue. Follow the story by linking to the CDT site from this page.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 5:04 PM

 

Watching Yourself Being Watched

Filed under: Imported

Your author is no movie critic, but news of the movie Echelon: The Secret Power (Echelon: Le Pouvoir Secret), a hot favorite at European film festivals, made its way to my email in-box. Taken from the book of the same name, it is said to be a revealing examination of the super-secret cyber-surveillance system engaged in by English-speaking countries--including the US, the UK, and New Zealand.  A coalition of the willing cyber-spooks.  Check in the foreign or film festival sections of your video rental store if it does not come to a movie theatre in your city.  And look out for those ditigal cameras watching you as you buy your ticket and popcorn.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 4:54 PM

 

Sodom and Santorum*

Filed under: Imported

Will striking the Texas law that forbids consexual sex between gay couples (a/k/a sodomy) but that allows "alternative" forms of sex between heterosexual couples, be tantamount to approving child molestation and polygymy?  That's what Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said, in comments angering homosexual groups an civil libertarians.  Santorum was referring to the case pending in the Supreme Court challenging the law. 

Would he make the same analogy with respect to a law like that in Virginia, where sodomy is a crime for gays and straights?  Hmm...we won't invade his privacy by asking about his sexual habits.  But if we have any right to bodily privacy at all, it ought to extend to sexual acts between consenting partners. Somebody get this guy a copy of the new edition of The Joy of Sex. And remind him that he should have more important issues to worry about--like the budget and the war--than who's doing what between the sheets. 

And while we are on the topic, keep your eye out for future stories on plans to chip away at Roe v. Wade until there is nothing left. The legislature of my home state (Virginia), spent more time on anti-abortion legislation than any other issue this term.  The state is choking in budget deficits and traffic, and they ban the morning after pill.  Watch this space.

*Special thanks to Jeffrey St. Clair of CounterPunch for the title to this piece.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 8:22 AM

 

Peaceful Protests on Bicycles Lead to Strip Searches

Filed under: Imported

An embarassed Los Angeles Board of Supervisors has settled a lawsuit brought by bicyclists wrongfully arrested during the 2000 Democratic National Convention.  Seems like bicyclists--radicals who don't drive SUV's like patriotic Americans--were following a police escort in a peaceful demonstration when they were arrested for creating "chaos" by not riding on the right side of the road.  Taken to jail, they were subjected to strip and body cavity searches.  California law forbids such intrusions into bodily privacy for minor offenses.

Women arrestees got $70,00 each and the men only $5,000 (what's up with that?), but that won't stop the civil rights law suits against the officers and the city for false arrest.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 7:09 AM

 

You Can Ask, But We Won't Tell

Filed under: Imported

As reported in today's New York Times, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the Transportation Security Administration related to its "No-Fly" list. That's the list of people deemed a threat to air safety that the TSA sends to airlines daily. Hundreds of people have been singled out for intense questioning and/or denied boarding. TSA won't disclose how names are chosen for the list, and trying to get removed from the list is downright Kafkaesque. Come to think of it, so is the list itself.  While some would-be passengers believe their identities are being confused with some "real" bad guys, others think their participation in antiwar protests have landed them on the list.

Read my articles on digital surveillance and you can get a sense of how a surveillance camera at an antiwar demonstration (and they are there, you know) can be combined with other ditigal data maintaned by commercial and government concerns, combined into a profile,and--voila!--there is your visage and social security number on any number of lists.  When you get assigned a card, like ace of clubs, then you should really start to worry. 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 23, 2003 7:01 AM

 

Building Better Surveillance Through Technology

Filed under: Imported

I reported in this space about Cisco's development of an embedded system that will help law enforcement better search your computer and email.  The New York Times reports on growing advances in digital surveillance cameras. They are everywhere--chances are you are photographed in many places you visit daily.  The digital technology is attractive to law enforcement and surveillance professionals because it can be so easily indexed, linked, and merged with other digital databases to create a running log of  your comings and goings.  "A Day in the Life Of...", coming soon, to a police precinct and FBI field office near you.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 22, 2003 9:38 PM

 

Building a Better Sniffer

Filed under: Imported

Cisco proudly announces that it has embedded a component in its routers to aid law enforcment in searching your hard drive and email.  When a FBI field office notifies your Internet Service Provider to open up your computer to their surveillance (perfectly legal thanks to the USA Patriot Act, with no notice to you, no warrant required, and no court review),  the ISP utilizing Cisco routers will have the strategic advantage. With surgical-like precision (like those "smart bombs" used in Iraq), your email and web caches will fly from your desktop/laptop right into the hands of the FBI. It's a dirty job--but somebody's got to make the money.  

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 22, 2003 8:44 PM

 

Kids in Guantanamo

Filed under: Imported

ABC News Online reported that an undetermined number of children under the age of 16 are being held as "unlawful juvenile combatants" in the Department of Defense prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Talk about "shock and awe."  There must be some king of international human rights violation here.  Of course, there are no civil liberties to worry about, as Bush and Ashcroft have assured us that unlawful combatants have no rights whatsover.  They are held at the discretion of the President, and a federal court recently ruled that they have no legal status to challenge their detention.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 22, 2003 8:27 PM

 

Guilty Pleas in Buffalo: What Ashcroft Doesn't Tell You

Filed under: Imported

You know the drill.  Mid-day or early afternoon press conference called by Attorney General John Ashcroft.  FBI Director Robert Mueller at his side, along with U.S. Attorneys from jurisdiction in which charges brought.  All standing in front of draped statues of "Justice," to avoid offending the sexually repressed.  Cost to taxpayers--$8,000

 

The announcement:  One or more "terrorists" pled guilty to charges of aiding and abetting the Taliban, Hamas, etc., pick your group.  The full force of the law, as Ashcroft promised, is coming down on their heads. We will not tolerate terrorism. Justice is served.

 

Or maybe not.  As reported by Christopher Brauchli in the April 19 Boulder Daily Camera, the guilty pleas are often the result of strong-arm, if not downright egregious tactics, by Ashcroft and company. Plead to being a terrorist supporter by attending a Taliban training camp prior to September 11, or we will...charge you with murder, treason, or whatever we choose. Worse yet, declare you an unlawful combatant and send you to Guantanamo or a military brig somewhere far from your family. And you won't get to see that lawyer of yours with his fancy suit.  Unlawful combatants don't get lawyers. Oh, they don't get trials either.  And they also don't get to whine to a judge. Judges don't interfere when Bush or Ashcroft declare you an enemy fighter.  Because we are at war, see. And in times of war, courts step aside and Bush, Ashcroft, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are omnipotent.

 

Brauchli suggests that the guilty pleas in the trials of men in Buffalo, charged with attending a Taliban training camp, may not be justice at all, but the product of frightening scare tactics that ought to remind you not of the American criminal justice system as we used to know it, but of those of police states and totalitarian regimes.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 21, 2003 4:27 PM

 

City Councils to John Ashcroft: No to USA Patriot Act

Filed under: Imported

Citizens are slowly but surely waking up to the snatching away of their civil liberties while Congress was sleeping.  Since the passage of the USA Patriot Act, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI have been calling on local and state law enforcement agencies to help them enforce provisions of the Act, like questioning citizens for "suspicious activity" or visiting Muslim men for intelligence gathering" and, the latest sell, "to help us protect you from hate crimes."  That's a line the FBI used to question more than 10,000 Iraqi-Americans during the recent incursion into Iraq.

 

But a growing number of local governing bodies are saying "Thanks, no," to the Bush Administration.  To date, 89 cities have passed resolutions condemning the Patriot Act, with at least a dozen more in the works.  A statewide resolution against the law is close to being passed in Hawaii, according to an article in the April 21 Washington Post.  These local initiatives demonstrate that Americans of all political persuasions care about individual rights, and (surprise!) that Congress is way out of touch with the wants and needs of "ordinary" Americans.  Perhaps we are seeing the beginnings of a citizens' revolt.  

 

City Pages will publish a comprehensive article I wrote on the Patriot Act on April 23.  Sign up to receive an email alert when the article appears.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 21, 2003 5:52 AM

 

Is Dissent Dead?

Filed under: Imported

Bill Duryea of the St. Petersburg Times writes about the Baseball Hall of Fame-Bull Durham-Susan Sarandon-Tim Robbins debacle and places it in the context of the sorry state of dissent in the U.S. since September 11.  Concerns about the sentiment against unpopular political speech is growing in many quarters.  By current standards, the founding fathers could be cited for threatening national security and aiding and abetting terrorism.  Back then, the King called them "traitors."

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 20, 2003 10:04 PM

 

NYPD Resumes Surveillance on Political Activities

Filed under: Imported

Civil liberties groups are asking a federal judge in New York to crack down on the New York Police Department's questioning of antiwar protestors.  For the past eighteen years, the NYPD had been banned from conducting surveillance on political activities, after a lawsuit led to a consent decree to abandon this type of intelligence gathering. 

But the the same judge that the lawyers asked to limit surveillance, earlier this year set aside the consent decree as outdated. Judge Charles Haight said that the consent decree on intelligence activity of NYPD could hamper "terrorism" investigations.  

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 19, 2003 11:36 PM

 

NYPD and Antiwar Protestors

Filed under: Imported

Civil liberties groups are asking a federal judge in New York to crack down on the New York Police Department's questioning of antiwar protestors.  For the past eighteen years, the NYPD had been banned from conducting surveillance on political activities, after a lawsuit led to a consent decree to abandon this type of intelligence gathering. 

But the the same judge that the lawyers asked to limit surveillance, earlier this year set aside the consent decree as outdated. Judge Charles Haight said that the consent decree on intelligence activity of NYPD could hamper "terrorism" investigations.  

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 19, 2003 11:32 PM

 

Ashcroft Violates Court Order--Unintentionally, Of Course

Filed under: Imported

Detroit U.S. District Court Judge Gerald E. Rosen is presiding over the trail of four men accused of being members of a terrorist cell. He has ordered the government and defense attorneys not to make any public comments about the case.  At a public press conference on Thursday, Attorney General Ashcroft praised one of the government's witnesses, Youssef Hmimssa, even noting that he had pled guilty to certain charges in exchange for his testimony. 

"I was concerned and distressed to wake up this morning to hear the attorney general discuss the credibility of a witness in this trial," the judge said, according to a New York Times story. The defense attorneys asked  the judge to find Ashcroft in contempt, and one of the prosecutors, a U.S. Attorney, made no effort to defend his boss.

Barbara Comstock, Department of Justice spokeswoman, played down the comments and downgraded the judge's mandate from the status of a valid court order to merely his "wishes regarding publicity."  Judge Rosen issued the order to protect defendants' Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial and to confront witnesses. The Attorney General's vouching for a government witness violates those guarantees.

Contempt orders against members of the government's Executive branch have been legion in the Bush Administration, notably against officials in the Department of Interior (for not complying with court orders concerning Native American trust funds) and even attorneys in the Department of Justice for not being forthcoming in discovery.  But the ability of a court to enforce its contempt powers against an Executive branch that thumbs its collective nose at the Judiciary when it rules against it is a practical problem.

No one should be above the law, but Ashcroft apparently is.

 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 19, 2003 7:42 AM

 

Down the Hatch with the Patriot Act

Filed under: Imported

The Salt Lake Tribune's opinion page notes the growing concern about the USA Patriot Act. Citizens in Sen. Orrin Hatch's state plan a protest march on the State Capitol in Salt Lake City Saturday, April 19. Hatch, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will be instrumental in making sure the Patriot Act does not end in 2005, pursuant to its "sunset" provisions.  Congressmen who slept through its passage the first time, however, are promising to take a closer look this time.  Better late than never--the awareness of our rights slip, slipping away under the banner of patriotism.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 18, 2003 4:46 PM

 

Right to Confront Witnesses Curtailed During "War on Terror"

Filed under: Imported

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is preparing to hear an appeal in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, allegedly involved in planning some part of the terrorist attacks of September 11.  U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the government to produce a witness who is being held in Germany, Ramzi Binalshibh.  The basis for her decision is the Sixth Amendment's right to confront one's accusers.  In heavily redacted briefs filed with the Fourth Circuit (redacted, we are told, for reasons of national security), the government argues, "{M}any individual rights guaranteed by the constitution will not be construed to reach so far as to interfere with the Executive's conduct of war."  At least they concede there is a guarantee, which is more than Justices Scalia, Rehnquist, Bryer, and O'Connor are prepared to do. They have been preparing us to live with "less rights" during the "war on terror," suggesting how they will rule when some of cases challenging inroads on liberty reach them next term.

Because the courts are "powerless to interfere in the conduct of war," a judge cannot order a witness to appear that would interfere with the President's conduct of said war, the prosecutors argued in their brief.  It is not clear just how Binalshibh's questioning by Moussaoui's attorneys, who have been granted security clearances, would compromise the war. But it has been suggested that Binalshibh might not implicate Moussaoui, as he is claiming that he alone was the "mastermind" of the attacks.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 18, 2003 1:52 PM

 

Freedom Muzzled

Filed under: Imported

Since 1992, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson's admonition that freedom of speech "cannot be limited without being lost."

Visit the rogue's gallery of perpetrators waging the battle against free speech.  Not surprisingly, Attorney General John Ashcroft is at the top of the list.  A close second is the 107th Congress that brought us the USA Patriot Act.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 18, 2003 9:56 AM

 

The War on Civil Liberties

Filed under: Imported

Civil liberties, first coined as a term in the mid-17th century, refers to individual rights as against the power of the government. In its strictest sense, it refers to liberties to be free in our bodies, our homes, our minds, our churches, our travel, our associations.  These most elemental of freedoms, along with rights of the people in the face of government power, were granted to Americans in the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights came about primarily through the efforts of George Mason, Virginia's delegate to the constitutional convention of 1787. Having crafted a Bill of Rights for the Virginia constitution, Mason was distressed that the framers of the federal constitution made no such provision. The Articles of Confederation, he pointed out, were all about federal power, leaving open the opportunity for centralized tyranny, a sore matter to the former subjects of King George III.

Though Mason left the convention in protest, the First Congress of the United States adopted the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which came to be known as the Bill of Rights, on September 25, 1789. The most significant are freedoms of speech, press, assembly, worship, due process, trial by jury, and right to counsel. Over 225-plus years, judicial decisions and laws have defined the extent of these freedoms--such as when a jury trial is required, and what the limitations are to be on free speech and assembly.

"They hate us for our freedoms," said President Bush on September 20, 2001, referring to the motivation for the September 11 terrorist attacks. The freedoms Bush was referring to are those embodied in the Bill of Rights.  Ironically, the "war on terror" that Bush declared that day is being waged not just against "evil," "rogue states," and "threats to national security," but against the very liberties for which we are supposedly despised. 

If "they" indeed hate us for our freedoms, "they" have far less to hate us for today.  Join me as we follow the war on civil liberties and watch the government rewrite our bill of rights.

Send comments, questions, and items of interest to me at ecassel1@cox.net.

Elaine Cassel

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 18, 2003 9:42 AM

 

Free Press Ignores Assault on Freedom

Filed under: Imported

The press largely admits that it failed to pay much attention to the USA Patriot Act when it was passed, literally in the dark of night after little debate. Most Senators had not even read the final version before voicing their "aye's" and falling far short of  defending the Constitution. Read Nat Hentoff's take on this sad state of a free press when its very freedom is at stake.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 18, 2003 7:43 AM

 

Editing the Bill of Rights: A Bit of Humor

Filed under: Imported

The Onion's clever parody of a rewrite the the Bill of Rights by a coalition of the Congressional willing has as much truth as humor.

 

 

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 18, 2003 6:18 AM

 

Not the 20th Hijacker After All? DOJ Changes Theory of Case

Filed under: Imported

This week the Justice Department announced a new theory in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th September 11 hijacker. Seems they now claim he was not planning to board one of the four planes that were hijacked, but was planning on hijacking a fifth plane to crash into the White House. 

Makes one wonder about that iron-clad case they have, when they are changing their theory this late in the game. Could that be why DOJ is threatening to remove him from federal court to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they will try him in a military tribunal?  Moussaoui would be the first person tried in this setting, procedures for which were established by DOJ and the Department of Defense after the war in Afghanistan.

Read the latest in the skirmish over whether DOJ will abide by Judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling and allow Moussaoui's attorneys to question a key witnesss against  him.  At stake is the whether the 6th Amendment's guarantee that one has the right to face one's accusers is constrained by so-called "national security" interests.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at April 16, 2003 8:37 PM

 

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