Breaking the Law, Pt 2
ast time around, we talked about the Geneva Conventions, and why violating the Geneva Conventions results in breaking the law. Basically, because we signed on and ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1955, and are not adhering to them today, the USA is breaking the law. That makes us war criminals.
It’s an ugly thought. War criminals.
This time around, I’d like to talk about the Constitution, and more importantly, the Bill of Rights. For those of you who are a bit rusty on American history, it goes like this: long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a passel of little colonies that grew up on a new continent called America. The colonies were ruled by a mighty empire, called Great Britain. Great Britain, at the time, was ruled by a monarch called King George III, who is generally considered to have been mentally ill, owing to illness and/or possible arsenic poisoning. Either way, King George was big on war. Unfortunately, war was expensive. Fortunately, King George had the American colonies to leach dry for cash, as they were very rich colonies. The citizens of the colonies eventually got extremely cranky with the taxation by the Crown, as they had no say in how they would taxed, or on what, etc and so forth, and so the colonies kicked up a big fuss which eventually became the Revolutionary War.
The Revolutionary War kicked off in 1775, and ran through 1783 or so. During that time, the colonies issued a Declaration of Independence, and invited France to send an army to help out, which they did. (So, for those of you out there who are so down on the French, keep that little pearl in mind, okay? If it hadn’t been for the French, there wouldn’t be a USA.) After the colonies won the war, and after a lot of fuss and hassle, they got a Constitution together in 1787. It took a lot of work, because the colonies were trying to build a new kind of government, free of monarchy, free of oppression of white guys who owned land (they added in black folks and brown folks and wimmin folks later on, after more fights), and run by the vote of the people. It was a fairly drastic departure from the norm — the norm being a royal family, with kings and queens and so forth, and possibly with a parliament who would occasionally politely ask said kings and queens if they could oppress their subjects slightly less in the future, please.
All of which is important to understanding the Bill of Rights. The idea behind the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution in general, was to write a binding document of law which would last down the generations, and ensure that our government couldn’t oppress our people, as we felt they had been oppressed by the monarchy of the time. The Constitution is supposed to ensure that the federal government doesn’t become too powerful, and especially doesn’t become so powerful that it can trample, willy-nilly, all over our rights and civil liberties.
This is why people like me have conniption fits over what’s been going on for the last few years. This is why folks like me start screaming bloody murder over things like the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the recent tussles over the FISA Act.
These three acts are seen as violating our Bill of Rights, largely because they infringe on the First and Fourth Amendments. In particular, the Military Commissions Act removed the right of Habeus Corpus from detainees — Habeus Corpus is your right to know why you’ve been imprisoned and to have a court hearing determining if your imprisonment is legal. It’s a fundamental aspect of law that’s been in use in the country since the birth of our nation, and has been around as early as the 12th century. We’ve been using Habeus Corpus for hundreds of years to prevent leaders from summarily locking folks up for no particular reason and throwing away the key. In one fell swoop, the Military Commissions act took that away from detainees.
I know that when I read that, I sucked my underwear so far up my ass that I could taste lint in the back of my throat. This is a basic premise of our law that has been around since the 12th century, for fucksake. Our government is not empowered to just take that away from people. The fact that America does not do such things is part of what makes us a free country.
This is entirely aside from political considerations of which party is in power at what time. What I’m talking about here is one administration which is blatantly and opportunistically removing and fiddling with the basic tenants of our country, for it’s own ends. It does not matter if the Bush administration, or the FBI or the CIA under that administration, has or has not abused the powers given to them by these acts and others. What matters is that, according to our Founding Fathers, our government was never meant to have that kind of power over us.
And, the fact remains that our current administration lied and cheated to get that power. We know — we have stone cold paper proof, in the form of memos, faked intelligence, — that our government has already lied us into war, and then used that war, and the fear of terrorism in general, to remove and curtail our rights.
We have a government which is blatantly lying to us so that it can initiate wars and curtail our rights. This is breaking the law.
(Photo credit: George W. Bush.)
November 18th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
In one fell swoop, the Military Commissions act took that away from detainees.
Yeah, and anyone can be declared a detainee, without oversight. If the DoJ decides Java is a baddie, they label can label her an “enemy combatant” and poof! There go her rights. Who checks the validity of this claim, and makes sure that detainees are actually bad guys? Oh, yeah, the DoJ.
And the very term “detainee” makes my blood boil. We can’t call them prisoners, because our pesky old Constitution has provisions for “prisoners.” Likewise that annoying Geneva Convention. But neither document mentions detainees. So, because someone left a Thesaurus where Darth Cheney could get a look at it, the Bill of Rights is about as relevant as a roll of Charmin.
Grr, I say. Grr.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:10 am
Some folks also dont remember that this has been done before.
Abe Lincoln, for example, suspended the right of Habeus Corpus during the civil war. Whats the difference?
I’ll tell you.
The difference is, Abe was trying to avert the secession of half the American Union, and found his country in the midst of a civil war.
The largest political crisis this country has ever seen.
We are in no such danger today, and this is merely an exscuse to detain prisoners indefinately.
Our president has LIED to us, to start a WAR, wich has resulted in the deaths of over 3000 american soldiers.
Why arent we rioting again?
November 19th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Although the Charter of Liberties preceeded the magna carta , it is the latter document we rely upon. For the convenience of the readership, here is a place to find, and read, the document in its entirity. It is a nice neat clean straightforward piece of work.
http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
I believe this is the pertinant item:
Magna Carta, item: 39. No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, ordisseized,or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed–nor will we go upon or send upon him–save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
40. To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice.
and re. Mr Lincoln:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/young-andrew7.html
regarding Ex Parte Merryman
Pointing out of course, that Mr Lincoln was in volved in a WAR at the time, whereas we have never actually, officially, formally declared war in Iraq.
It is a technicality, and yet……
and for Ex Parte Quirin
the legal justification for Mr. Bush’s actviities, see this article:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl834.cfm
the following quote
In 1942, the United States Supreme Court decided Ex parte Quirin,1 a case in which prisoners detained for trial by military commission appealed a denial of their motions for writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court held that “military tribunals are not courts in the sense of the Judiciary Article [of the Constitution].”2 Rather, they are the military’s administrative bodies to determine the guilt of declared enemies, and pass judgment.
hmmmm…..
issue seems pretty clear to me.