Clean Elections, Jobs for Justice, Volunteers for a Better America and Giving Generously
One thing the current national scene should do is convince each and every one of us to become more involved locally. Here in Central Illinois, there are several groups that are generally interested in promoting social justice. Surely, each one of us can find one group that is "close enough" to our own particular set of values that we can become involved as an active participant in the struggle to recapture our democracy. Clean Elections, Jobs for Justice, Volunteers for a Better America--each of these groups has potential to make real differences for individuals in ways big and small. Just think what this world would be like if we established a state fund that paid for election campaigns and took the millionaires and corporate money out of the elections! No more "bought" legislation, no more paying attention to the rich guys while poor families go without heat, health care, and education. Think if we all dedicated ourselves to ensuring that each person had a decent job that could pay for food, shelter and even health care and retirement. What if we all volunteered to inform our neighbors, encourage dialogue, engage in civic projects, and work for peace and justice each day? Couldn't it be a better world?
Did you read the story in the Chicago Tribune today about the shortfalls in food banks in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. People have topped out in donations. But remember the earlier posting on A Taxing Matter, that wealthy people are far less generous with their incomes than people in lower income brackets? Let's go out there and press everyone to ante up before the end of the year to help those who are less fortunate.
Surveillance and More Surveillance (and Alito)
"Nation's Phones Tapped: Government analyzing massive amount of calls, e-mail traffic" screams the Chicago Tribune on the front page, Christmas Eve 2005, as the story of the Bush Administration's widespread data-mining operation becomes better understood. Not just a few dozen calls based on specific traces to particular overseas terrorist suspects, but "large volumes of telephone and internet communications flowing into and out of the United States" "collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries." Id. The Administration even arranged for foreign-to-foreign traffice to pass through U.S.-based switches, and telecommunications companies willingly obliged in scanning that traffice for "patterns" and passing it along to the government. All of this data-mining of private communications has been done, without the ordinary warrant requirement, in a context of warm cooperation between the Bush Administration and our quasi-public telecommunications utilities and media companies.
"'All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area,' said [a] former ... telecommunications expert." Id.
The Administration claims, see this story by Eric Lichtbau, that FISA doesn't provide sufficient flexibility in this age of terror. Yet it did not then go to Congress and work out a law that protects liberties while providing the kind of rules necessary. Instead, it determined that it would just not abide by the law on these matters and "arranged with top officials of some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to important switches." Id. Interestingly, Colin Powell is on record, here, as saying he supports the exercise of the authority, that he doesn't understand why the Administration did not seek authorization under the law since it would not have been difficult, and that there will be a great debate over the warrantless eavesdropping. As always, Powell is trying to do the impossible--be loyal to Bush and be loyal to the values for which this country stands.
It may be that products of this data-mining have then been used by the Bush Administration to justify further surveillance of particular targets under the FISA court's very secretive processes. This is reported to be one of the reasons that Judge Robertson, an appointee to the FISA court, stepped down to protest the Bush policies.
By Christmas Day, we could peruse the Justice Department memo to the chairs and vice-chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, linked here. The legal rationales offered are disturbing in a country that purports to be the leader of the free world. Bush, buttressed by a vice president and staff member who have explicitly stated that they wish to increase the brute power of the office of the presidency, essentially claims that the Constitutional authority to command the armed forces in the time of war give him the right to do whatever he deems necessary in the interests of national security, without courts or Congress having any check upon that power. In addition, the memo claims that the authorization to invade Afghanistan was an implicit exception to the strict requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Not unsurprisingly, Supreme Court nominee Alito argued as far back as the 1980s that government officials who violate the law in ordering illegal wiretaps should be considered immune from lawsuits (though he did not think his arguments should be tested in court). Remember that Alito's memos were written in the context of the aftermath of Watergate and the indictment and ultimate imprisonment of Attorney General John Mitchell for obstruction of justice. (Yes, those same charges that are applicable to Scooter Libby in the outing of Valerie Plame.) If government officials are above the law, what constraint is there to ensure that they act for the public good rather than for their personal aggrandisement or power? This is another reason for filibustering Alito's nomination. His ideological extremism would support an immensely powerful executive and decreased rights for women and minorities.
Meanwhile, we also learn of widespread radioactivity monitoring by the government, apparently by driving vehicles into private parking lots adjacent to homes, mosques and stores. See this report by Matthew L. Wald in the Dec. 24, 2005 New York Times reporting "thousands of searches" over the last three years. The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued the following statement.
"This disturbing revelation, coupled with recent reports of domestic surveillance without warrant, could lead to the perception that we are no longer a national ruled by law, but instead one in which fear trumps constitutional rights. All Americans should be concerned about the apparent trend toward a two-tiered system of justice, with full rights for most citizens, and another diminished set of rights for Muslims." Id.
Federal agents have asserted they have violated no constitutional rights. One is quoted as saying "If you can drive a car into the parking lot near the shopping mall, we [with our sophisticated spying equipment] can go there." Id. This nonchalance of government agents to privacy invasions confirms that privacy rights have deteriorated amazingly since the 1965 Terry v. Ohio case that concluded that Americans have no expectations of privacy in their automobiles. Make no mistake about it--this is a grab for immense discretionary power over citizens who have in no way provided probable cause or even reasonable suspicion of commiting treason. It is essentially a right of the executive to be above the laws created for others in this country, and to choose to apply those laws as that person sees fit.
Meanwhile, a lone Republican senator blocked authorization of the intelligence bill, in what the meda reported, here, as an attempt to thwart the efforts of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to require detailed national intelligence updates to Congress about secret detention sites overseas and reports on prisoner treatment and conditions. Why is it that Republicans and Wall Street are so supportive of secret detentions, extraordinary renderings, and torture? Surely they must know that those behaviors go against every tradition of liberty.
Jose Padilla: now you've got him, you don't want him?
Remember that Padilla is an American citizen who was seized on U.S. soil and then imprisoned for years in a military brig on Bush's decision to label him an enemy combatant who, according to Bush, intended to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States. We have no way to know whether Padilla is innocent or guilty, because his case has never come before a court, in spite of the writ of habeas corpus and the 14th amendment due process rights. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a court heavily laden with Republican appointees that leans heavily to the right in almost all its decisions, essentially held that American citizens can be held as enemy combatants whenever a President says that wartime exigencies require it. See the September 2005 decision, here. Since Padilla was arrested on American soil as a civilian and held for three and one-half years (and counting) in a military brig, that is an enormously worrisome conclusion in a regime that seems bent on maintaining a perpetual state of war to support the military-industrial expansion that ordinarily accompanies it.
The Bush Administration apparently was worried about being able to uphold any kind of case against Padilla. After winning the right to treat him as an enemy combatant held by the military based on the assertion that his release would threaten national security, the Administration decided it would prefer to release Padilla from military custody. The Administration may not have wanted to face the Supreme Court's decision with O'Connor still on the bench and right-wing ideologist Alito not yet--and maybe never--appointed. It requested that the Fourth Circuit moot its ruling and permit Padilla to be turned over to civilian custody for some comparatively petty criminal accessory charges.
To put it mildly, last week's Fourth Circuit opinion, here and New York Times description, here, reflected the anger of being used and the concern that the Administration was toying with the judicial system. It noted the irony of a request for release of a person that it had just argued must be held in military security. It questioned the absence of information about Padilla's purported taking up arms with Afghanistan fighters against the United States, and the timing of an "emergency application" for transfer to civilian custody just days before the district court would hear evidence on whether Padilla, a citizen, had been properly classified as an enemy combatant and days before briefings were due in the Supreme Court on Padilla's appeal of the Fourth Circuit decision. Conservative Judge Michael Luttig (considered by Bush for the Supreme Court), used scathing language to indicate a concern that "the government may be attempting to avoid consideration of [the Fourth Circuit] decision by the Supreme Court" even though the case clearly "warrant[s] final consideration" because it "presents an issue of suchy especial national importance." The court concludes with a frank observation that the Administration's conduct of the Padilla case could be seen as casting doubt on its integrity and hence its credibility before the courts--either Padilla may have been held for almost four years by mistake, or the powers the Administration has asserted it requires are not really necessary in the fight against terrorism.
The Wall Street Journal, the editorial pages of which lately seem to operate as Bush-Cheney lackeys, immediately came out with an editorial reminding the country that Bush hasn't been aggressive enough, having caved to McCain on "torture" (in quotes, so that you know they don't think torture is a serious subject), settling for a piddling six-month extension of the Patriot Act (this was before the House reduced it to five weeks), and now abandoning its enemy combatant case against a U.S. citizen. Why, to read the Wall Street Journal, you would think that excessive military power over ordinary Americans' lives, the use of torture, excessive corporate subsidies, giveaway tax cuts for millionaires, and an FBI, CIA or NSA agent in the driveway, attic and basement of every home was the ideal American dream that our courageous soldiers fought so hard for in World War II! The Journal's editorial makes a few errors. It claims that "Padilla has become a liberal icon--an 'innocent' man who has been held 'illegally.'" Padilla is a liberal icon, but not because he is necessarily innocent. He may well be guilty of planning to detonate a dirty bomb, but Americans who treasure liberty are not comfortable with a one-man monkey court declaring him evil and putting him away without due process of law. The Journal goes on to say that the debate has been caught up in "one man's rights" and missed "the right of the rest ofus to be protected from enemy attack."
Of course, that argument misses on several points. Each person's rights are, in fact, every other person's rights--we cannot think about rights in the aggregate, societal rights, "freedom" or "democracy" in the abstract, if those abstract rights do not translate to real protections for each and every individual. The reason our criminal system declares that individuals are "presumed innocent" is that only in that way can each person's right be realized. The rule of law is based first and foremost on this fundamental principle--that each individual shall be judged on his or her own actions, on the merits of the information, without prejudice. The individual cannot be lightly executed just to simplify protection of those who remain. If an individual can be subject to arbitrary process today, then any other individual may be subject to that same arbitrary process tomorrow. This was the lesson learned by the world in a most difficult way during Hitler's Third Reich. It is dictatorships that declare the power to judge and execute citizens on the sheer whim of the dictator. And no person who escapes the ax one day has any rest that he or she will be free from it the next.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, speaking out
Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired Army colonel, has begun speaking out about the Bush Administration. He notes the secretive approach of the Administration, and its incompetence both at home and abroad. He asserts that Powell was too involved with damage control to do the work he should have done. He accuses Cheney and Rumsfeld of running a cabal that makes the critical decisions on issues for a president who "is not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either." See the story in the New York Times, Dec. 24, 2005, at A4. He laments the Administration's condoning of torture and setting policies that led to abuses like Abu Ghraib.
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