When George Bush ascended to his thrown in 2000 he exercised his Droit du Seigneur and proceeded forthwith to begin stripping US citizens of their constitutionally guaranteed rights. That he, and his minions, have been able toi get as far as they have down this road is a sad statement on the political acuity of the average American as well as the political system as a whole. Fortunately it appears congress is beginning to notice the state of the king's haberdashery and are taking a closer look at PATRIOT I and II.
To help them along the 4th Circuit court has been involved in a decision regarding the right of the president to incarcerate citizens without any recourse to trial, charges, lawyers, in short justice for indeterninate lengths of time. Unfportunately for liberty and justice in America the court supported the President King in this matter.
However there were dissenting views on the bench, most notably Judge Motz, who said:
Courts have no higher duty than protection of the individual freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. This is especially true in time of war, when our carefully crafted system of checks and balances must accommodate the vital needs of national security while guarding the liberties the Constitution promises all citizens
"For more than a year, a United States citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi, has been labeled an enemy combatant and held in solitary confinement in a Norfolk, Virginia, naval brig. He has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. The Executive [the president] will not state when, if ever, he will be released. Nor has the Executive allowed Hamdi to appear in court, consult with counsel, or communicate in any way with the outside world."
"I fear that [this court] may also have opened the door to the indefinite detention, without access to a lawyer or the courts, of any American citizen, even one captured on American soil, who the Executive designates an 'enemy combatant,' as long as the Executive asserts that the area in which the citizen was detained was an 'active combat zone,' and the detainee, deprived of access to the courts and counsel, cannot dispute this fact."
Dire yet not overboard warnings from an astute member of the bench. Congress take heed!
Patriot II is basically dead, from what I understand. There were some rumblings, somewhere, to that effect yesterday.
Posted by: Scott on July 30, 2003 04:50 AM