Monthly Archives: January 2008

At the Archives, the First Amendment Is Just for Show

1st-needs-you.jpgThe National Archives is one of my favorite DC attractions. It has a small public display area showing some major documents in American history. Among other treasures, it displays one the original copies of the Bill of Rights — with all twelve of the original proposed amendments. (There's even a special vault to protect the original Constitution and Bill of Rights at night.)

What became our First Amendment is actually the third on the original list. Sadly, it seems that the Archive's guards think the Bill of Rights is just for show.

According to this account in a Daily Kos diary, Vistiors to the Archives were kicked out for wearing “Impeach Bush and Cheney, Change History” T-shirts:

With the original First Amendment “Freedom of Speech” looking on, admirers of the U.S. Constitution in the Washington D.C. National Archives Building today were ordered to leave for wearing tee-shirts reading “Impeach Bush and Cheney.” Many of the tourist-activists were in town to hail the arrival of impeachment marcher John Nirenberg, the 61 year-old college professor who has just walked from Boston to D.C. to call attention to the need for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

In a telephone interview, one of the participants, Susan Serpa, age 56, told me she was looking at the displays when a female security guard approached her and said “You need to go speak to that man over there” indicating a burly security guard. When Serpa asked why, the woman said: “Your shirt.” Serpa's shirt reads on the front: “Impeach Bush and Cheney, Change History.” On the reverse it says: “MaineImpeach.org.”

Other security guards then approached Serpa and told her: “You need to leave because of your shirt.

Assuming this account is correct, what the guards did is completely, totally illegal, as the Archives is federal property, open to the public, and the wearers were not committing a disturbance. But the guards either didn't know that or didn't care.

How have we sunk to this state?

Posted in Civil Liberties | 4 Comments

Close Guantanamo Now

The ACLU has the right answer for the problem of the Guantanamo camp: Close Guantanamo and outlaw indefinite detention.

One way to achieve this would be to pass the “Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act of 2007,” S.1469. The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Harkin, would close the facility within 120 days and send charged or sentenced detainees to the military's maximum security prison at Fort Leavenworth. The remaining detainees would be sent to their home countries or other countries that will not torture or abuse them.

I'm told that all the major Presidential candidates have taken a position on Guantanamo. Sen. Obama regularly calls to close Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus, and Sen. Clinton often says something similar. As yet, however, neither Sens. Clinton, Obama nor McCain have not signed on as co-sponsors of S. 1469. (Clinton has signed on to a Feinstein bill that closes Guantanamo. Unsurprisingly, given the author, the billcreates new problems by authorizing indefinite detention without charge.)

The ACLU is making today “Close Guantanamo Day”. Below I reprint their press release on it. There will also be a “Rush Hour Vigil” this afternoon at 5pm near South Com. I won't be able to make it, but Linda has details. And there are other events around the country.

I still hold to what I wrote in October 2003, in Guantanamo: Our Collective Shame:

As citizens we all bear a degree of collective responsibility for what our government does in our name. That responsibility is greater when we are or should be on notice. And thus, we are all responsible for what is happening in Guantanamo detention camps.

We are collectively responsible for what is happening in Camp Delta and Camp Iguana (the latter holds children). It is, or it should be, a matter of shame that our government chose to confine the Camp Delta prisoners in solitary, indefinitely, without news or the prospect of having their cases determined in the foreseeable future and where the policy is “We interrogate seven days a week, 24 hours a day.” (Interrogations, however, are limited [sic] “to no more than 16 straight hours” straight at one go.) There is no right to speedy trial (or other Geneva-convention-style hearing), or even to a trial. If and when trials do begin, there will be no right to to a proper attorney-client relationship even though the trials can end in the death penalty. Nor will there be a right to appeal the initial tribunal’s verdict to a neutral court staffed by judges with the neutrality of perspective that comes from life tenure.

As of a year ago, the BBC was reporting at least 30 suicide attempts out of a prison population of 600. While it’s possible that there is something about the population of detainees that predisposes them to suicide attempts, it’s also quite possible that it’s something about the conditions and, if so, conditions that bad arguably amount to illegal torture under international law. On the other hand, the rate of suicide attempts may be down as a recent CBS report put the total at 32.

This rich nation of ours can afford to give each detainee a first class fair trial, if it wanted to. In so doing it would send a healthy message about our values to the world. The decision not do so is a choice. By making that choice the Administration is sending a terrible message to the world. It’s also a really lousy precedent.

I also believe that it’s constitutionally wrong. Our government is, or should be, an entity subject to the Constitution. I do not read that document to allow our government to act lawlessly and without review. And certainly not indefinitely.

A government sure of itself, and confident of the rightness of its actions, would not hide the detainees in legal limbo. To do so suggests a meanness of spirit at best, a tendency to lawlessness and something to hide at worst, and a tin ear to the world’s opinion at all times.

We in the US—indeed all those in the Coalition of the willing —are responsible for this. If the courts will not take jurisdiction over events at Guantanamo, then we must demand that all the prisoners held there be moved to a place where ordinary civilized rules apply.

Cf. Kos, After 2190 Days, This Festering Abomination Persists

Continue reading

Posted in Guantanamo | 6 Comments

That Was In Another Country

Robert Waldmann has a very good memory.

But the past is another country. And besides…

PS. If you were at that party, and by some miracle you happen to read this, get in touch.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

They Can’t Even Wiretap Properly

Our wiretap-happy government didn't pay its wiretap bill.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation “was halted due to untimely payment,” the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

Lots more where that came from.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 3 Comments

Soghoian’s Law

Soghoian's Law of Identity Theft Stupidity: Anyone who publishes their own private financial details in a public discussion of identity theft will eventually find that information used for fraud.

Posted in ID Cards and Identification | 1 Comment

Quality Over Quantity

Eric Muller says he doesn't remember many jokes, but in I'm Here All Week. Tell Your Friends. he tells a great Jewish joke that I never heard before:

So Joel Rabinowitz, this Jewish guy, falls in love with Bird-in-the-Night, an American Indian girl. They get married and soon decide to have a baby. This is when things get tough. Sol's parents insist that any grandchild of theirs must have a Jewish name. Bird-in-the-Night's parents tell Bird that they'll disown her if she doesn't give their grandchild an Indian name.

When the baby's born, they name her “Smoked Whitefish.”

Posted in Completely Different | 4 Comments