Guest perspective By Ralph
Nader/In the Public Interest
Paraphrasing Shakespeare, something is rotten in the
state of Capitol Hill. A majority of Congress is just about to put the
finishing touches on an amendment to the military budget authorization
legislation that will finish off some critical American rights under our
Constitution.
Here is how two retired 4 star marine generals, Charles
C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, described in the New York Times the stripmining
of your freedom to resist tyranny in urging a veto by President Obama:
“One provision would authorize the military to indefinitely
detain without charge people suspected of involvement with terrorism, including
United States citizens apprehended on American soil. Due process would be a
thing of the past….
“A third provision would further extend a ban on
transfers from Guantanamo, ensuring that this morally and financially expensive
symbol of detainee abuse will remain open well into the future.”
All of Obama’s leading military and security officials
oppose this codification of the ultimate Big Brother power. Imagine allowing
the government to deny people accused of involvement with terrorism (undefined),
including U.S. citizens arrested within the United States, the right to a trial
by jury. Imagine allowing indefinite imprisonment for those accused without
even proffering charges against them. Goodbye 5th and 6th Amendments.
On some government agency’s unbridled order: just pick
them up, arrest them without charges and throw them into the military brig
indefinitely. This atrocity deserves to be repeatedly condemned loudly
throughout the land by Americans who believe in the rights of due process,
habeas corpus, right to confront your accusers, right to a jury trial—in short,
liberty and the just rule of law.
Some stalwart lawyers are speaking out soundly: They
include Georgetown Law Professor, David Cole, George Washington University Law
Professor, Jonathan Turley, Republican lawyer, Bruce Fein, former American Bar
Association (2005-2006) president, Michael Greco, and the always alert lawyers
at the civil liberties groups. Their well-grounded outcries are not awakening
the citizenry.
Where are the one million lawyers? Where are the
thousands of law professors? Where are the scores of law school deans? Are they
not supposed to be our first constitutional responders?
Where is the Tea Party and its haughty rhetoric about the
sanctity of constitutional liberty? Most of the Tea caucus voted for tyranny.
Presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul has been an outspoken critic of this
attack on our civil liberties.
The majority also voted to ratify a dictatorial procedure
in the Congress, as well. This indefinite, arbitrary, open-ended dictatorial
White House mandate was never subjected to even a House or Senate Committee
hearing, and was not explained with any rationale known as legislative
“findings.” It was rammed through by the House and Senate Armed Services
Committees without the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees invoking their
concurrent jurisdiction for public hearings.
So extreme are these majority Congressional extremists,
composed of both Republicans and renegade Democrats, the latter led by Senator
Carl Levin, that the Obama Administration has to lecture them about the
fundamental American principle that “our military does not patrol our streets.”
It is not as if the imperial presidencies of Bush and
Obama need any more encouragement and legitimization to continue on their
lawless paths to criminal wars of aggression, unlawful surveillance, arbitrary
slayings of innocents, wrongful imprisonments, and unauthorized spending.
Instead of Congress using its constitutional authority regarding the war,
appropriations and investigative powers, it formalizes its impotence by handing
the “go for it” power to the Executive branch with the vaguest of language
boundaries.
Usually there are a few Senators whose upfront defense of
our Constitution would lead them to stand tall against the “Senate Club” and
put a “hold” on this pernicious amendment. Civil libertarians hope that, before
the final Senate vote in the rush to get home for the Holidays, Senators Rand
Paul, Tom Harkin, Al Franken, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, Bernie Sanders,
Jeff Merkley, Tom Coburn or Mike Lee would step forth.
A “hold” could spark the demand for public hearings and
floor debate to give the American people the time and information to react and
ask themselves “how dare Congress take away our most fundamental rights?”
President Obama initially threatened to veto the entire
bill and make Congress drop these pernicious dictates that so insult the memory
and vision of our founding fathers. He is already signaling that he doesn’t
have the backbone to reject the false choice “between our safety and our
ideals,” that he asserted in his Inaugural Address.
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