We want our freedom back

On Thursday, September 28, the United States of America became a police state. By police state, we mean a country in which the ruler has the power to throw anyone into prison for the rest of his or her life, solely on his own say-so, without the imprisoned person ever coming before a judge.

The toxic legislation that accomplished this chilling transformation of our country is called the Military Commissions Act. Touted as a way to continue tough interrogations of terrorists, it applies in fact to anyone, citizen or foreigner, who is declared to be an “unlawful enemy combatant.” The kicker is that the President alone has absolute power to make that determination, without due process, judicial review or legislative oversight. “I’m the decider,” was Bush’s answer when pressured by journalists as to why he doesn’t fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. And that’s as much reason as he needs to throw you or me into jail and throw away the key.

The right of prisoners to require government officials to show cause for their detention before a court, known as habeas corpus, is one of the most ancient civil rights in the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence. It was first encoded in the Magna Carta, the seminal contract of rights that rebellious barons forced King John to sign in 1215. Our founding fathers considered it so important that they enshrined it in the Constitution itself, written in 1787, rather than waiting until 1789 to add it to the Bill of Rights.

In the Federalist Paper 84, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the writ of habeas corpus provides “perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains...[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny…” Without habeas corpus, there nothing to stop a ruler from simply throwing members of his political opposition into jail and letting them rot—as did Stalin, for instance, or Mao Tse Tung.

Those who have full confidence in President Bush might bridle at the above comparison. But there are few who have full confidence in all politicians; many who trust Bush do not trust Hillary Clinton, and those who trust Clinton might not trust Russ Feingold or George Allen. However honestly one President might wield this weapon, there will sooner or later be one who abuses it.

Many Americans seem unaware that they have just been stripped of perhaps their most fundamental right, and others have reacted with a shrug. They have done nothing wrong and so, they think, they have nothing to worry about. After all, the law describes an “unlawful enemy combatant” as “a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents.” None of us has supported hostilities against the United States. So the good guys are all safe, right?

There are two problems with this assessment. One is the fact that people are sometimes wrongly accused—just ask Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was turned over to the Americans by Canadian intelligence as a terrorist, sent to one of our overseas “black hole” prisons in Syria, and tortured—all on what was ruled by Canadian courts just last month to be bogus information.

Moreover, rhetoric from the administration and its supporters equating dissent with support for terrorism could make a lethal combination with the new law. On September 11, The Washington Post reported Vice President Cheney as saying that debate over the war in Iraq is “emboldening adversaries.” House Majority Leader John Boehner recently said of Congressional opponents to the war, “I wonder if they are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.” Such comments suggest the possibility of an insidious math: disagreeing with Bush on Iraq = supporting terrorists = unlawful enemy combatant = indefinite detention without trial.

Habeas corpus must be restored. That means Congress must be changed: 65 Senators, including Senators Specter and Santorum, voted for the Military Commissions Act; Schumer and Clinton voted against. The House vote was 253-168, with Sherwood voting for it and Hinchey against. In all, 12 Democratic Senators and 34 Democratic Representatives sided with the Republican majority to repeal habeas corpus, afraid that if they voted to preserve our freedom they would be seen as being soft on terrorism.

Election day is November 7. Let them know what you think.

Also in this issue:

• Challenging the need for NYRI

Dr. Punnybone

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall!