Aren't these the countries that Reporters Without Frontiers claimed had
more freedom of the press than the US? I guess we now know how much that
claim is worth...
Care to provide evidence of any of these alleged measures? Care to provide
evidence of similar measures for the other 98 or so military actions over
the two-hundred years since?
Fisher himself spends all of about 12 pages in that entire book on the Constitutional
issues involved in the Presidential use of force at all, and little more than that on
the history of the US up to the second world war. I don't think he's the source you're
looking for...
Actually, no. Check the books -- Jefferson waged war undeclared on the Barbary Pirates, while
Madison eventially sought a declaration of war (but did not do the same against French port
sabotage).
And at the risk of stating the obvious, if out of over one-hundred wars fought by the US, less
than a dozen have been declared wars, we are not talking about `a few presidents ignoring the
constitution', but about the standing interpretation of the constitution -- and the fact that
several of that documents authors were among the president's involved shows that this is also
the original intent of the constitution.
The problem is, now that the patriot act has been passed, the FBI doesn't need a search warrant issued from a judge to tap your phone, they just tap your phone and don't tell you.
Umm, no, no they don't -- nothing in USA PATRIOT allows phone taps without a search warrant, where do you get this idea?
Please show us any language in USA PATRIOT which you feel gives them this power -- it's just not there.
Or save yourself some time and effort, and read the discussion attached to this journal entry.
They can also stop by the library and by law the libarian has to given them a print out of every book you ever loaned out... and if the libarian informs you that your being
investigated, they can goto jail &| be fined...
Another weird misinterpretation. They can subpoena records from a library, with a warrant signed by a judge, but this is something
they could already do. A judge can sign a gag order in an ongoing criminal investigation, but this is something they could already do.
Neither of these are new with USA PATRIOT, and if you believe otherwise, I welcome you to provide any text in the act backing up your
claim.
Ah, america... home of brave, land of the sorta free...
Ah, slashdot... home of the hyperbolically paranoid, land of the black-helicopter types...
(Though I welcome you to provide any example of a nation you claim is more free than the US, if you can.)
Remarkably little content given the length of your post. You do manage, however, to:
Roll out the usual scare words like `far to the right' (used, laughably enough, to describe the Heritage Foundation, which is about as mainstream a conservative group as there is)
Attempt to smear the Olin Foundations philanthropy by pointing out that Mr. Olin made his money in explosives manufacturing -- I suppose you must be terribly opposed to the Nobel Prize, then, eh?
Attempt to smear the IJ's record by micharacterizing their position on a number of issues
Question the support for school vouchers in the minority community, despite the fact that it is poor inner city communities who are most hurt by having their children trapped in failing schools -- one reason that groups like the
Black Alliance for Educational Opportunity are some of the firmest supporters of School Choice
Describe opposition to affirmative action as `racist' -- a dirty smear, and one that fails to explain how it could be racist to opposerace-based preferences.
So, in short, I'd have to say that your post tells us a lot more about your narrow biases and (amusingly) about how threatened you feel by groups like the IJ which are doing actual work for civil liberties then it tells us about the IJ itself.
Care to provide any cite to back up your wild claims?
In point of fact, Mr. al-Muhajir (why do you say `Padilla'? Do you call Muhammad Ali `Cassius Clay'?) is one of only three Americans detained as enemy combatants, the other
two being Yaser Hamdi and James Ujaama. None of the three are being held `secretly', nor were any of the three `spirited away' -- Mr. Hamdi was caught on the battlefield
in Afghanistan, and the other two were arrested quite publicly, with press conferences and the whole nine yards.
Nor are they `just' being held -- as mentioned above, they are entitled to and have received court overview of their designation as combatants, a term with a specific legal
meaning.
So, it seems that there no `countless American citizens' in custody at all -- unless your mathematical ability is so low that you find three to be `countless'.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, if of over 100 wars the US has fought, less
than a dozen were declared wars, and if every generation of presidents has held this
power, including the founding generation (and remember, Jefferson and Madison both
exercised it), it follows that my position is the status quo, the default position.
If you want to argue for a change in this policy, that's fine -- but you shouldn't
argue that it would be anything but a change, since from the author of the Constitution
on, every president has had this power.
More generally, the ACLU's constant preference for grandstanding
over action and action in support of dubious `rights' such as the `right'
to affirmative action or the `right' to welfare payments has driven
away a lot of their former supporters (myself included).
If your looking for a group doing actual work toward civil liberties, you
may want to check out the Institute for Justice.
I'm assuming that you are refering to the detention of enemy combatants.
This isn't something that the president can `now' do, this is something that
has been a power of the executive branch since the earliest days of our Republic,
and which has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court, most recently in the
1942 case Ex Parte Quirin.
For more information on the court's ruling in Quirin see this journal entry.
While we're on the subject, by the way, not only is this not a new power, your
characterization of it is false as well -- far from receiving `no scrutiny', the
accused has the right to a court hearing to review the evidence for his designation
as an enemy combatant. To pick the most current example, Abdullah al-Muhajir (formerly
Jose Padilla) is receiving just such a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom right now. If
the judge rules that there is not enough evidence to hold him as a combatant, he will be
remanded to civilian custody to be charged with a crime or released.
The differences are primarily diplomatic -- the legislature's power to declare
war is a counterpart to the requirement that the legislature ratify all treaties.
Related powers granted to the legislature in the same section include the power
to grant letters of marque (for privateers) and to set the prize rules for
captured enemy ships -- both of which are dated, but were highly relevant in the
eigteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
A good place to start would be Max Boot's _The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power_,
which is a history of small-scale military engagements which the US has participated in -- from the conflicts
with the Barbary Pirates starting in 1800 through the present.
You can find a review of Mr. Boot's book from the History News Network (with some discussion of the subject) here,
or order it here.
In short, what you'll find is that out of over 100 military campaigns the US has participated in, from the dawn of
our nation through the present, less than a dozen have been declared wars. This suggests that the body of precedent
backs up what I have said...
Says you. Both Madison (the author of the Constitution) and Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence)
and a key figure in the Constitutional debates believed otherwise, using the military without a declaration of war.
More generally, the vast majority of Constitutional scholars agree that when the Constitution says that the President
is the Commander in Chief of the military, that's what it means.
So perhaps you can provide a source backing your interpretation of the Constitution?
Actually, the vast majority of US military actions before the second World War
were also undeclared, starting with President Jefferson's actions against the Barbary
Pirates. The same holds true of most military actions by most nations in the world's
history.
A declaration of war has a specific legal meaning, and is a power reserved to the Congress
by the US Constitution. The use of military force, which does not require a declaration of
war, is assigned by the Constitution to the Commander in Chief of the armed forces -- which
is the president.
In most large scale military actions, such as Korea, VietNam, or the Gulf War, the President
has sought the advice and consent of the congress before acting, but this is not a Constitutional
requirement.
Well, which is it? Are the nations we act against indeed sovereign states,
in which case under international law they have a responsibility to prevent
their territory from being used to launch attacks on us or aren't they?
If, indeed, they are sovereign states, then they do have such a responsibility,
and our right to defend ourselves against such attacks is clearly defined by
international law (including the UN Charter's Article 51).
Ummm, huh? If we accept that (with a search warrant approved by a judge) the FBI is
able to tap your phone, on what grounds would they not be able to demodulate a fax
transmission recorded from that phone?
I mean, if you want we can have a discussion as to whether phone taps (with warrant, of course)
should be allowed, I suppose, but if we do allow that (as we have for decades now), it's hard
to see how this doesn't follow -- and that's what the appeals court ruled.
Well, for starters, I think that should read ``a publicity-crazed state attorney general
is trying to raise the spectre of carrier liability in order to draw attention to his
re-election campaign'', but yes, people do try stunts like this from time to time. That
the system has done a very good job of smacking such attempts down (and that the only example
you come up with is from local state politics, not federal at all) is one more example
of how well our system has done at the job of preserving individual rights in the over two-hundred
years that it has existed.
No, I think you're missing the point -- the fact that parents have a responsibility
to take care of their kids does not in any way take away a store-owner's right to decide
what type of establishment he wants to run.
Nor is this `just' about morality -- the storeowner (in this case WalMart) is making
a clear business decision based on the fact that many customers will choose a store without porn
in it over a store with porn in it when they take their kids shopping.
I have done so -- see also the discussion thereof (and attendant challenge) in in this journal entry.
In short, while there is plenty of room for argument as to whether USA PATRIOT is necessary, you'd be pretty hard pressed to argue
that a law which merely extends to organized terrorism practices which were already ruled constitutional when Kennedy used them against
organized crime forty years ago can be considered to be taking away rights now.
Actually, the record shows that despite a lot of lobbying by the Clinton administration,
spearpointed by Freeh himself, our representatives made the right choice, and said no
to key escrow.
In other words, despite the efforts of those like Freeh, the system's worked pretty well at
safeguarding people's rights...
Interesting -- so in your view prosecution of server admins after the fact for
publishing content (child pornography) which is already illegal is the same as
prior restraint of web publishing or punishment of unpopular views?
U.S. is mere motions away from this. If recent precedent carries over to Net space, "Justice" Department will exercise this authority without consultation from the legislature.
Care to back this claim up? Care to show us anything resembling this being proposed in the US?
And, for the record, I wouldn't call a nation doing something like this a `liberal democracy', no
matter what continent it's on. Would you?
Slashdot Mirror
Aren't these the countries that Reporters Without Frontiers claimed had more freedom of the press than the US? I guess we now know how much that claim is worth...
Here are two more sources contradicting Mr. Fisher's view:
Care to provide evidence of any of these alleged measures? Care to provide evidence of similar measures for the other 98 or so military actions over the two-hundred years since?
Fisher himself spends all of about 12 pages in that entire book on the Constitutional issues involved in the Presidential use of force at all, and little more than that on the history of the US up to the second world war. I don't think he's the source you're looking for...
Actually, no. Check the books -- Jefferson waged war undeclared on the Barbary Pirates, while Madison eventially sought a declaration of war (but did not do the same against French port sabotage).
And at the risk of stating the obvious, if out of over one-hundred wars fought by the US, less than a dozen have been declared wars, we are not talking about `a few presidents ignoring the constitution', but about the standing interpretation of the constitution -- and the fact that several of that documents authors were among the president's involved shows that this is also the original intent of the constitution.
The problem is, now that the patriot act has been passed, the FBI doesn't need a search warrant issued from a judge to tap your phone, they just tap your phone and don't tell you.
Umm, no, no they don't -- nothing in USA PATRIOT allows phone taps without a search warrant, where do you get this idea? Please show us any language in USA PATRIOT which you feel gives them this power -- it's just not there.Or save yourself some time and effort, and read the discussion attached to this journal entry.
They can also stop by the library and by law the libarian has to given them a print out of every book you ever loaned out... and if the libarian informs you that your being investigated, they can goto jail &| be fined...
Another weird misinterpretation. They can subpoena records from a library, with a warrant signed by a judge, but this is something they could already do. A judge can sign a gag order in an ongoing criminal investigation, but this is something they could already do. Neither of these are new with USA PATRIOT, and if you believe otherwise, I welcome you to provide any text in the act backing up your claim.
Ah, america... home of brave, land of the sorta free...
Ah, slashdot... home of the hyperbolically paranoid, land of the black-helicopter types...
(Though I welcome you to provide any example of a nation you claim is more free than the US, if you can.)
Remarkably little content given the length of your post. You do manage, however, to:
- Roll out the usual scare words like `far to the right' (used, laughably enough, to describe the Heritage Foundation, which is about as mainstream a conservative group as there is)
- Attempt to smear the Olin Foundations philanthropy by pointing out that Mr. Olin made his money in explosives manufacturing -- I suppose you must be terribly opposed to the Nobel Prize, then, eh?
- Attempt to smear the IJ's record by micharacterizing their position on a number of issues
- Question the support for school vouchers in the minority community, despite the fact that it is poor inner city communities who are most hurt by having their children trapped in failing schools -- one reason that groups like the
Black Alliance for Educational Opportunity are some of the firmest supporters of School Choice
- Describe opposition to affirmative action as `racist' -- a dirty smear, and one that fails to explain how it could be racist to oppose race-based preferences.
So, in short, I'd have to say that your post tells us a lot more about your narrow biases and (amusingly) about how threatened you feel by groups like the IJ which are doing actual work for civil liberties then it tells us about the IJ itself.Care to provide any cite to back up your wild claims?
In point of fact, Mr. al-Muhajir (why do you say `Padilla'? Do you call Muhammad Ali `Cassius Clay'?) is one of only three Americans detained as enemy combatants, the other two being Yaser Hamdi and James Ujaama. None of the three are being held `secretly', nor were any of the three `spirited away' -- Mr. Hamdi was caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and the other two were arrested quite publicly, with press conferences and the whole nine yards.
Nor are they `just' being held -- as mentioned above, they are entitled to and have received court overview of their designation as combatants, a term with a specific legal meaning.
So, it seems that there no `countless American citizens' in custody at all -- unless your mathematical ability is so low that you find three to be `countless'.
If you want to argue for a change in this policy, that's fine -- but you shouldn't argue that it would be anything but a change, since from the author of the Constitution on, every president has had this power.
Wow, I'm sorry your sex life is so bad.
More generally, the ACLU's constant preference for grandstanding over action and action in support of dubious `rights' such as the `right' to affirmative action or the `right' to welfare payments has driven away a lot of their former supporters (myself included).
If your looking for a group doing actual work toward civil liberties, you may want to check out the Institute for Justice.
I'm assuming that you are refering to the detention of enemy combatants.
This isn't something that the president can `now' do, this is something that has been a power of the executive branch since the earliest days of our Republic, and which has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court, most recently in the 1942 case Ex Parte Quirin.
For more information on the court's ruling in Quirin see this journal entry.
While we're on the subject, by the way, not only is this not a new power, your characterization of it is false as well -- far from receiving `no scrutiny', the accused has the right to a court hearing to review the evidence for his designation as an enemy combatant. To pick the most current example, Abdullah al-Muhajir (formerly Jose Padilla) is receiving just such a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom right now. If the judge rules that there is not enough evidence to hold him as a combatant, he will be remanded to civilian custody to be charged with a crime or released.
The differences are primarily diplomatic -- the legislature's power to declare war is a counterpart to the requirement that the legislature ratify all treaties.
Related powers granted to the legislature in the same section include the power to grant letters of marque (for privateers) and to set the prize rules for captured enemy ships -- both of which are dated, but were highly relevant in the eigteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
A good place to start would be Max Boot's _The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power_, which is a history of small-scale military engagements which the US has participated in -- from the conflicts with the Barbary Pirates starting in 1800 through the present.
You can find a review of Mr. Boot's book from the History News Network (with some discussion of the subject) here, or order it here.
In short, what you'll find is that out of over 100 military campaigns the US has participated in, from the dawn of our nation through the present, less than a dozen have been declared wars. This suggests that the body of precedent backs up what I have said...
Says you. Both Madison (the author of the Constitution) and Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence) and a key figure in the Constitutional debates believed otherwise, using the military without a declaration of war.
More generally, the vast majority of Constitutional scholars agree that when the Constitution says that the President is the Commander in Chief of the military, that's what it means.
So perhaps you can provide a source backing your interpretation of the Constitution?
Nope. The Congress passed a resolution approving the use of force, but this isn't a declaration of war, which has a specific legal meaning.
Actually, the vast majority of US military actions before the second World War were also undeclared, starting with President Jefferson's actions against the Barbary Pirates. The same holds true of most military actions by most nations in the world's history.
A declaration of war has a specific legal meaning, and is a power reserved to the Congress by the US Constitution. The use of military force, which does not require a declaration of war, is assigned by the Constitution to the Commander in Chief of the armed forces -- which is the president.
In most large scale military actions, such as Korea, VietNam, or the Gulf War, the President has sought the advice and consent of the congress before acting, but this is not a Constitutional requirement.
Well, which is it? Are the nations we act against indeed sovereign states, in which case under international law they have a responsibility to prevent their territory from being used to launch attacks on us or aren't they?
If, indeed, they are sovereign states, then they do have such a responsibility, and our right to defend ourselves against such attacks is clearly defined by international law (including the UN Charter's Article 51).
Ummm, huh? If we accept that (with a search warrant approved by a judge) the FBI is able to tap your phone, on what grounds would they not be able to demodulate a fax transmission recorded from that phone?
I mean, if you want we can have a discussion as to whether phone taps (with warrant, of course) should be allowed, I suppose, but if we do allow that (as we have for decades now), it's hard to see how this doesn't follow -- and that's what the appeals court ruled.
In other words, nothing new...
Well, for starters, I think that should read ``a publicity-crazed state attorney general is trying to raise the spectre of carrier liability in order to draw attention to his re-election campaign'', but yes, people do try stunts like this from time to time. That the system has done a very good job of smacking such attempts down (and that the only example you come up with is from local state politics, not federal at all) is one more example of how well our system has done at the job of preserving individual rights in the over two-hundred years that it has existed.
No, I think you're missing the point -- the fact that parents have a responsibility to take care of their kids does not in any way take away a store-owner's right to decide what type of establishment he wants to run.
Nor is this `just' about morality -- the storeowner (in this case WalMart) is making a clear business decision based on the fact that many customers will choose a store without porn in it over a store with porn in it when they take their kids shopping.
I have done so -- see also the discussion thereof (and attendant challenge) in in this journal entry.
In short, while there is plenty of room for argument as to whether USA PATRIOT is necessary, you'd be pretty hard pressed to argue that a law which merely extends to organized terrorism practices which were already ruled constitutional when Kennedy used them against organized crime forty years ago can be considered to be taking away rights now.
Care to provide an example of what you consider to be an `assault' on your rights since September 11, much less a `hysterical' one?
Kids these days...
Actually, the record shows that despite a lot of lobbying by the Clinton administration, spearpointed by Freeh himself, our representatives made the right choice, and said no to key escrow.
In other words, despite the efforts of those like Freeh, the system's worked pretty well at safeguarding people's rights...
Heh -- anyone wanna guess who's orthodoxy was offended enough by this fact to make them mark this post (but not either of the parents) `Off Topic'. :-)
Interesting -- so in your view prosecution of server admins after the fact for publishing content (child pornography) which is already illegal is the same as prior restraint of web publishing or punishment of unpopular views?
Really?
That's even stranger than your original claims...
U.S. is mere motions away from this. If recent precedent carries over to Net space, "Justice" Department will exercise this authority without consultation from the legislature.
Care to back this claim up? Care to show us anything resembling this being proposed in the US?
And, for the record, I wouldn't call a nation doing something like this a `liberal democracy', no matter what continent it's on. Would you?