Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
The Senate has declined to specify whether the government has the power to arrest you on American soil and hold you indefinitely without a trial on the grounds that you're a suspected terrorist.
Citizens who are suspected of joining Al Qaeda are opening themselves up “to imprisonment and death,” Mr. Graham said, adding, “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them: ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer. You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined Al Qaeda.’ ”
Do you really want our super-competent government to be able to do this forever because it suspects someone of joining Al Qaeda? As opposed to, "because it has evidence of this that will stand up to legal scrutiny?"
Indefinitely? Without a lawyer? Without a trial?
After being arrested by the military, on US soil?
Forever, because that's how long we'll be living with the risk of terrorism?
I might have found the idea that the government will abuse this power silly once upon a time. That was before I lived in Turkey. Now I know better.
Oh, and riddle me this: You are suspected of joining al Qaeda in America, we can lock you up forever--or kill you!--without a trial. You are an actual Salafist in Egypt, and we nod pleasantly when you run for Parliament: Way to go, democracy! One man, one vote, one time, and I do mean one man, because that is not the gender-inclusive use!
I'm just not getting the logic, here.
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Aug '10
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
Gosh, I have frequently posted here and elsewhere that we should immediately withdraw from Afghanistan.
Does that make me an Al Qaeda sympathizer.?
Is that a drone I hear outside my window?
Jan '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
You won't hear the drone, just the sound as the bomb crashes through your roof right before the warhead explodes.
Mar '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
Ajax Telamônios
You won't hear the drone, just the sound as the bomb crashes through your roof right before the warhead explodes.
I think they are supersonic, so you won't hear anything.
As Mr McEnroe would say - "Claire, you cannot be serious". A vote for Dr Paul helps Mr Obama return to the White House -- he prefers Predator drones to waterboarding or Guantanamo Bay -- it avoids all sorts of legal problems.
Nov '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
If there's no trial, then the government can arrest anyone for any reason. If there is a trial, then the government has to hand over all its intelligence to Al Qaeda every time they catch a terrorist. It's a tough call.
Jun '10
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
You have competing constitutional principles. One says that the President has nearly unilateral control over how wars are fought, depending on how you define war. He can't unilaterally decide what, if anything, to spend on war, but he's in charge of everything else. The competing interest is a citizen's right to due process. It's not going to be decided by Congress in any case. I expect that the Supreme Court will split the baby in half. Do what you like to American-born enemy combatants on foreign soil, but once they step on American soil, the rules change. Obama was truthful about not needing Guantanamo for the long term. He just kills them where they are. Problem solved.
Jul '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
I'm with Claire on this one. Even if this weren't an abhorrent notional violation of Posse Comitatus it still wouldn't pass a basic smell test. We have a law governing citizens who are suspected to be aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war. We call it Article III Section 3 of the Constitution.
I am not even slightly open to this notion that these trials cannot be held in the light of day. I will quote an episode of Stargate SG-1 (I'm sorry but it came to mind first).
"I believe that which grows in the shadows and withers in the light of day, does not belong on the vine." EP120 'Senator' Kinsey
Edited on Dec 1, 2011 at 10:09pmApr '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
I'm with Claire on this as well. State of war or not, citizens still have rights. As far as secrecy concerns, how is this any different from the challenge of fighting organized crime?
Apr '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
I generally support our use of less than noble means when dealing with terrorist abroad. I feel this mostly because we don't really have any kind of legal jurisdiction out side our borders, and because many terrorists operate from countries with questionable legal systems (to put it mildly) not to mention governments hostile to us. Thus we have little choice but to take matters into our own hands. On US soil I have a serious problem with either the CIA, NSA, or Army taking action. We have domestic Police both national and Local that can arrest people, and the constitutional protections we have apply to all people within our jurisdiction. Suspecting some one of joining Al'Queda may be reason for arrest and interrogation, but not for torture, execution, or indefinite detention if performed on US soil.
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
It's been a long, long day, Claire, and, frankly, I'm just too pooped to do anything but register my own indignation. But at least let me do that.
I'm with you.
Nov '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
I think most of us here will agree that the US is at war with Al Qaeda.
If you join Al Qaeda in their war effort against the US you have moved out of the rules of ordinary criminal law and into the laws of War.
If you get caught with a smoking bomb in your briefs or you try to explode your truck in Times Square the President, at his discretion, can determine you are an illegal enemy combatant and you are held under the rules of war. Not criminal or civil law.
It matters not at all if you are a citizen or if you are captured inside or outside our borders.
As citizens we have all sorts of rights in civil matters. Those rights do not apply to war if we take up arms or bombs against the US.
Is there a risk that a President could abuse this? Sure, but Congress has a check with impeachment and citizens have a check at the ballot box.
A good idea would be for the President to have a military review process to review their situation and make sure they earned the title enemy combatant.
Edited on Dec 1, 2011 at 11:49pmOct '10
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
We are not at war with any organization or nation because war was never declared by Congress. It is amazing how alleged Constitutionalists surrender due process and their liberty based upon less than a 1% chance of harm. You can all get your Depends from the Obama state dispensary at anytime you feel brave enough to get out from under your beds. The President does not have the right to summarily execute American Citizens. American Citizens are entitled to due process. If I take up arms against my country, it is called treason. Treason is dealt specifically in the Constitution. It is a crime, whether at war or not at war. To differentiate my rights because of a category of association or alleged association seems that I only have the liberty the President decides I have. To support that view means that you believe that people have no inalienable rights and statists such as Marx, Lenin and Mussolini are your guiding lights.
May '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
I do NOT agree.
The rules of war (an oxymoron when you think about it) apply to a declared war. Our Congress has not declared war. Wars are fought against other countries. Al Qaeda is not a country.
The Constitution does provide for Letters of Marque and Reprisal (Article 1 Section 8) which no recent administration has chosen to use.
The idea of war has gotten so abused in the past 40 years with wars on poverty, military conflicts, wars on drugs, non-combatant advisers, wars on hunger, wars on terrorism, kinetic military action, private contractors, etc. we no longer know what it means to declare war. All because the Presidents did not want to involve (or could not get the approval of) a partisan Congress that was / is more interested in thwarting the President than carrying out their duties.
We have reached the bottom of the slippery slope and no longer know what is legal, ethical, and moral regarding the handling of our enemies.
I'm with Claire.
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
Since yesterday we are having a great discussion about the President's unilateral right to kill any one of us without due process by asserting he determined we are connected to al-Qeada:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Due-Process-Hypocrisy-George-Bush-Can-t-Pour-Water-on-a-Terrorist-s-Face-But-Barack-Obama-Can-Kill-Americans
After examining the law authorizing the GWOT, being part of the above discussion and listening to Epstein and Yoo in LawTalk #14, I'm convinced the President can walk into a church in New Jersey, shoot me dead, and his actions are unreviewable by any court because he made a political decision that I was assisting al-Qeada.
The worst he would suffer is impeachment if we could muster the political will and votes.
Welcome to the America Ron Paul has warned us about.
Edited on Dec 2, 2011 at 5:55amSep '10
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
Until recently, I gave the government the benefit of the doubt when it came to foreign policy. Since 9/11, I have come to realize its incompetence does not end at the borders. Now, the lines between foreign and domestic policy are vaporizing before our eyes.
I cannot be surprised. The erosion of the Constitution which began in earnest in the early 20th century is now a flood and our liberties a grand canyon. A misstep at the meandering precipice and we fall into the abyss. The document which once constituted us as a nation has become what Constitutional lawyers like to call, 'a nullity.' If this is not tyranny - the past prevention of which has cost much blood and treasure - I don't know what is.
Mar '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
The Sampo: I think most of us here will agree that the US is at war with Al Qaeda.
If you join Al Qaeda in their war effort against the US you have moved out of the rules of ordinary criminal law and into the laws of War.
If you get caught with a smoking bomb in your briefs or you try to explode your truck in Times Square the President, at his discretion, can determine you are an illegal enemy combatant and you are held under the rules of war. Not criminal or civil law.
Where do you get this from? The constituion says that if you, as a citizen, have levied war (their word) against them (the United States) that you shall be convicted of treason on the testimony of 2 witnesses or confession in open court and that Congress (by extension, not the President?), has power to declare the punishment. That sounds a lot different from what you said above, so I am wondering what your authority is
Nov '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
I am also with Claire - but I would never, ever, ever, ever vote for Ron Paul for president.
Apr '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
If the argument is over regulations or law, slippery slope arguments are valid. Precedent acts like a slope, pushing future decisions in the direction of past ones. Crisis and expediency make the slope slippery.
Claire is right. Ron Paul warned about this ten years ago. The government reaction to terrorism is stripping away our rights.
There is an alternative: arm and train the people on the Swiss model. Tens of millions of armed, vigilant citizens going about their daily lives. That's a more effective deterrent to terrorism than five CIAs. We could keep our rights, and be more secure. Freedom works.
Nov '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
Pilli
I do NOT agree.
The rules of war (an oxymoron when you think about it) apply to a declared war. Our Congress has not declared war. Wars are fought against other countries. Al Qaeda is not a country.
Congress did provide authorization to fight a war. The President says it is war and congress says it is war. We are at war.
The constitution specifically vests the President with executive powers and makes him the Commander in Chief. His job is to defend the nation. I do not believe that Al Qaeda's non-state status changes his powers to defend the country from their aggression.
Apr '11
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
Claire Berlinski, Ed.:
Oh, and riddle me this: You are suspected of joining al Qaeda in America, we can lock you up forever--or kill you!--without a trial. You are an actual Salafist in Egypt, and we nod pleasantly when you run for Parliament: Way to go, democracy! One man, one vote, one time, and I do mean one man, because that is not the gender-inclusive use!
This is how government prerogatives are executed. Political expediency will determine who is killed and who is imprisoned for life. The government has reached a turning point.
Liberals and even many conservatives believe the government's power should be unlimited. These people disagree with the basic principles of the Constitution. They ignore the history of tyranny. They ignore the pleas of their fellow citizens.
People get the government they deserve. We've got to convince our fellow citizens that the Founder's arguments were right. Government's power must be strictly limited. Security comes from arming and empowering the people, not from centralized authority.
No liberal believes that. Most conservatives don't' believe that anymore. We've got a lot of work to do. We'd better hurry.
Edited on Dec 2, 2011 at 7:25amAug '10
Re: Keep This Up and I'm Voting For Ron Paul
In June 1942 German saboteurs landed via U-Boat in Florida. One of them was American Herbert Haupt. They were captured (on American soil), tried by secret military commission and executed via electrocution on Aug 8 1942. The case is Ex Parte Quirin.
This is nothing new.