[ql06] PUBLIC: Life During Wartime
- From: "Ken Campbell" <2kc16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 06:02:15 -0500
New York Times editorially from yesterday is attached below.
Should be interesting to see what the Court does about civil liberties
and the recent events.
My main comment:
As is noted in the last paragraph, conservative C.J. Rehnquist openly
rationalizes diminished civil liberties in wartime. That sounds pretty
straightforward... in a war like WWII, where "war" is clear, with
definite beginning and end. But in the "war" against terrorism, that
sounds more like one of those Orwellian wars in 1984, which goes on
forever, with no objective end, permitting a constant reduction of civil
liberties in the name of emergency.
Ken.
--
Wherever they burn books they will also,
in the end, burn human beings.
-- Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
--- cut here ---
The Supreme Court and Sept. 11
Published: November 5, 2003
In the two years since Sept. 11, the Bush administration and the federal
courts have rewritten important areas of the law, scaling back the right
to counsel, the ability of prisoners to challenge their confinement and
other civil liberties. Through it all, the Supreme Court has been
silent, largely because of the time it takes for cases to work their way
up. The court will soon have a chance, however, to consider several
cases posing the question of how much, if any, our constitutional rights
have changed as a result of Sept. 11. It has a duty to step in and stand
up for civil liberties.
The administration has taken some fairly radical steps in its war on
terrorism. It insists that anyone it labels an "enemy combatant,"
including American citizens, can be held indefinitely and denied access
to lawyers and family members. And it maintains that the hundreds of
detainees in Guantánamo can be held indefinitely, with no chance to
contest their captivity. On these two points, and on equally troubling
ones raised in other cases, federal appeals courts have sided with the
administration.
The Supreme Court is still assembling its docket for this term and will
have an opportunity to consider the administration's enemy-combatant
doctrine in the case of Yasser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen of Saudi
descent apparently captured on the battlefield in the Afghan war. Mr.
Hamdi has been held in a military brig since April of last year, without
access to a lawyer. An appeals court held that he had no right to
challenge his incarceration. It is a disturbing ruling, with sweeping
implications for the power of the government to detain citizens. The
Supreme Court should review it.
The justices will also be able to review, if they choose to, an appeals
court ruling that the Guantánamo detainees, who were captured in
Afghanistan and Pakistan during the Afghan war, have no right to contest
their confinement. The detainees are being backed not only by human
rights groups, but also by some retired military officers who argue that
the administration's policies could hurt American troops captured in
future conflicts. The court should take the case and direct the
administration to provide the detainees — many of whom, there is reason
to believe, were picked up in error — with a forum for challenging their
captivity.
Getting the Supreme Court to accept the cases is, of course, no
guarantee that they will come out the right way. Chief Justice William
Rehnquist has written a book arguing that civil liberties should be
diminished in wartime. But Justice Stephen Breyer reminded a New York
City bar association audience earlier this year that "the Constitution
always matters, perhaps particularly so in times of emergency." It is an
important message, one the Supreme Court should start delivering in its
decisions.
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