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May 08, 2003
feel the power
just a little place holder under "more." it can happan here. you can be held for no reason with no recourse. you can be next. close your eyes and think about the traaditional chicago practice of call ing the helath department on a restaurant who's given you shoddy service. anonymous. and now possibly deadly. no one knows how they'll react to the storm troopers kicking in the doors.
a quote from Ninth Circuit Justice Alex Kozinski's recent ruling:
"The sheer ponderousness of the panel's opinion--the mountain of verbiage it must deploy to explain away these fourteen short words of constitutional text--refutes its thesis far more convincingly than anything I might say. The panel's labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it--and is just as likely to succeed."
tim north, inventor of the hoverdrum has died of stomach cancer.
have a nice day.
> Patriot Raid
>
> Jason Halperin
> t r u t h o u t | Report
>
> Saturday 03 May 2003
>
> A month ago I experienced a very small taste of what hundreds of
South
> Asian immigrants and U.S. citizens of South Asian descent have gone
> through since 9/11, and what thousands of others have come to fear. I
> was held, against my will and without warrant or cause, under the USA
> PATRIOT Act. While I understand the need for some measure of security
> and precaution in times such as these, the manner in which this
> detention and interrogation took place raises serious questions about
> police tactics and the safeguarding of civil liberties in times of >
war.
>
> That night, March 20th, my roommate Asher and I were on our way to
see
> the Broadway show "Rent." We had an hour to spare before curtain time
> so we stopped into an Indian restaurant just off of Times Square in
> the heart of midtown. I have omitted the name of the restaurant so as
> not to subject the owners to any further harassment or humiliation.
>
> We helped ourselves to the buffet and then sat down to begin eating
> our dinner. I was just about to tell Asher how I'd eaten there before
> and how delicious the vegetable curry was, but I never got a chance.
> All of a sudden, there was a terrible commotion and five NYPD in
> bulletproof vests stormed down the stairs. They had their guns drawn
> and were pointing them indiscriminately at the restaurant staff and
at
> us.
>
> "Go to the back, go to the back of the restaurant," they yelled.
>
> I hesitated, lost in my own panic.
>
> "Did you not hear me, go to the back and sit down," they demanded.
>
> I complied and looked around at the other patrons. There were eight
> men including the waiter, all of South Asian descent and ranging in
> age from late-teens to senior citizen. One of the policemen pointed
> his gun point-blank in the face of the waiter and shouted: "Is there
> anyone else in the restaurant?" The waiter, terrified, gestured to
the
> kitchen.
>
> The police placed their fingers on the triggers of their guns and
> kicked open the kitchen doors. Shouts emanated from the kitchen and a
> few seconds later five Hispanic men were made to crawl out on their
> hands and knees, guns pointed at them.
>
> After patting us all down, the five officers seated us at two tables.
> As they continued to kick open doors to closets and bathrooms with
> their fingers glued to their triggers, no less than ten officers in
> suits emerged from the stairwell. Most of them sat in the back of the
> restaurant typing on their laptop computers. Two of them walked over
> to our table and identified themselves as officers of the INS and
> Homeland Security Department.
>
> I explained that we were just eating dinner and asked why we were
> being held. We were told by the INS agent that we would be released
> once they had confirmation that we had no outstanding warrants and
our
> immigration status was OK'd.
>
> In pre-9/11 America, the legality of this would have been
> questionable. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution
> states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
> houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and
> seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but
upon
> probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly
> describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be
> seized."
>
> "You have no right to hold us," Asher insisted.
>
> "Yes, we have every right," responded one of the agents. "You are
> being held under the Patriot Act following suspicion under an
internal
> Homeland Security investigation."
>
> The USA PATRIOT Act was passed into law on October 26, 2001 in order
> to facilitate the post 9/11 crackdown on terrorism (the name is
> actually an acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing
> Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.")
> Like most Americans, I did not recognize the extent to which this
bill
> foregoes our civil liberties. Among the unprecedented rights it
grants
> to the federal government are the right to wiretap without warrant,
> and the right to detain without warrant. As I quickly discovered, the
> right to an attorney has been seemingly fudged as well.
>
> When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that
I
> do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to
> the station and await security clearance before being granted one.
> When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile:
> "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."
>
> We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so.
> One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and
taunted:
> "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."
>
> We remained seated. Our IDs were taken, and brought to the officers
> with laptops. I was questioned over the fact that my license was out
> of state, and asked if I had "something to hide." The police
continued
> to hassle the kitchen workers, demanding licenses and dates of birth.
> One of the kitchen workers was shaking hysterically and kept
providing
> the day's date -- March 20, 2003, over and over.
>
> As I continued to press for legal counsel, a female officer who had
> been busy typing on her laptop in the front of the restaurant, walked
> over and put her finger in my face. "We are at war, we are at war and
> this is for your safety," she exclaimed. As she walked away from the
> table, she continued to repeat it to herself? "We are at war, we are
> at war. How can they not understand this."
>
> I most certainly understand that we are at war. I also understand
that
> the freedoms afforded to all of us in the Constitution were meant
> specifically for times like these. Our freedoms were carved out
during
> times of strife by people who were facing brutal injustices, and were
> intended specifically so that this nation would behave differently in
> such times. If our freedoms crumble exactly when they are needed
most,
> then they were really never freedoms at all.
>
> After an hour and a half the INS agent walked back over and handed
> Asher and me our licenses. A policeman took us by the arm and
escorted
> us out of the building. Before stepping out to the street, the INS
> agent apologized. He explained, in a low voice, that they did not
> think the two of us were in the restaurant. Several of the other
> patrons, though of South Asian descent, were in fact U.S. citizens.
> There were four taxi drivers, two students, one newspaper salesman --
> unwitting customers, just like Asher and me. I doubt, though, they
> received any apologies from the INS or the Department of Homeland
> Security.
>
> Nor have the over 600 people of South Asian descent currently being
> held without charge by the Federal government. Apparently, this type
> of treatment is acceptable. One of the taxi drivers, a U.S. citizen,
> spoke to me during the interrogation. "Please stop talking to them,"
> he urged. "I have been through this before. Please do whatever they
> say. Please for our sake."
>
> Three days later I phoned the restaurant to discover what happened.
> The owner was nervous and embarrassed and obviously did not want to
> talk about it. But I managed to ascertain that the whole thing had
> been one giant mistake. A mistake. Loaded guns pointed in faces,
> people made to crawl on their hands and knees, police officers
clearly
> exacerbating a tense situation by kicking in doors, taunting, keeping
> their fingers on the trigger even after the situation was under
> control. A mistake. And, according to the ACLU a perfectly legal one,
> thanks to the Patriot Act.
>
> The Patriot Act is just the first phase of the erosion of the Fourth
> Amendment. From the Justice Department has emerged a draft of the
> Domestic Securities Enhancement Act, also known as Patriot II. Among
> other things, this act would allow the Justice Department to detain
> anyone, anytime, secretly and indefinitely. It would also make it a
> crime to reveal the identity or even existence of such a detainee.
>
> Every American citizen, whether they support the current war or not,
> should be alarmed by the speed and facility with which these changes
> to our fundamental rights are taking place. And all of those who
> thought that these laws would never affect them, who thought that the
> Patriot Act only applied to the guilty, should heed this story as a
> wake-up call. Please learn from my experience. We are all vulnerable
> so speak out and organize, our Fourth Amendment rights depend upon
it.
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>
>
>
> Jason Halperin lives in New York City and works at Doctors Without
> Borders/Medicins San Frontieres. If you are moved by this account, he
> asks that you consider donating to your local ACLU chapter.
>
> (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
> distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
> interest in receiving the included information for research and
> educational purposes.)
>
> © Copyright 2003 by TruthOut.org
Posted by parody at May 8, 2003 01:03 PM
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Long post but I could not get the site
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Steamroller Ashcroft
by The Editors, The Economist (U.S. Edition), 5/3/2003
SO FAR, the debate about John Ashcroft has focused mainly on the war
against terrorism. Libertarians moan that the hyperactive
attorney-general has hugely expanded the government's power to
monitor citizens (by wiretapping their telephones and so on); that he
has made it much easier to detain and deport immigrants and foreign
visitors, particularly Arabs; and that he has ruthlessly accumulated
power over the country's sprawling judicial system in his own hands.
Conservatives wearily retort that wars force everybody to rethink the
balance between freedom and security. Surely the attorney general is
duty-bound to err on the side of vigilance to thwart another
September 11th?
Well, yes. But what if you examine Mr. Ashcroft's record in other
areas, such as medical marijuana, assisted suicide and the death
penalty? You find precisely the same pattern of John-knows-best
centralisation. The country's terror-fighter has also become the
country's self-appointed moraliser-in-chief. And he is trampling all
over two conservative principles he used to espouse: limited
government and localism.
Begin with an idea precious to most Republicans: states' rights. Mr.
Ashcroft has prosecuted "medical marijuana" users in California
despite a state initiative legalising the practice. He has tried
numerous ploys to challenge Oregon's assisted-suicide law (including
encouraging the Drug Enforcement Administration to revoke the
licences of participating doctors), thus snubbing both the state,
which has passed the law not once but twice, and the Supreme Court,
which has explicitly left policymaking in this area to the states. He
has repeatedly tried to bully local federal prosecutors into seeking
the death penalty, despite a long tradition of local discretion in
death-penalty cases.
Mr. Ashcroft's new reverence for central government is beginning to
seem downright Democratic, if not Gallic. The whole point of the
American political system is its sensitivity to local differences.
Federalism, as Justice Louis Brandeis put it, means "that a single
courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory;
and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the
rest of the country." It also means that a huge country with a richly
diverse population can try lots of different approaches to moral
issues. People in rural Nebraska can adopt a different approach to
lap-dancing from people in San Francisco; Vermont can demonstrate its
uniqueness by favouring both gay marriage and tight controls on
internet porn.
"Moral federalism" has deep roots in America. The English
Parliament's Act of Toleration (1689) left religious issues almost
entirely to local discretion. People with different religious views
congregated in different regions--Puritans in Boston, Catholics in
Maryland and so on. The Founding Fathers laboured mightily to keep
the federal government out of dictating civic virtue. James Madison
noted (in Federalist Paper 56) that different groups progress at
different speeds. Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist 17) argued that
any attempt to impose a centralised morality would be "as troublesome
as it would be nugatory". The local administration of justice is "the
most powerful, most universal and most attractive source of popular
obedience and attachment".
This tradition of moral federalism would seem particularly practical
now. The country is still basically split down the middle
politically, and this political divide reflects a deeper division
about values. When it comes to matters such as God and sex, many of
the people who voted for George Bush live in a different moral
universe from Al Gore's supporters.
There are clearly some areas where the federal government has to step
in to protect individual rights. It was right to use its might to
dismantle segregation in the South. Mr. Ashcroft has legal grounds to
argue that the constitution guarantees individual citizens the right
to bear arms. But in general the Justice Department needs to err on
the side of caution on issues where reasonable people can disagree.
It should recognise that different communities have very different
views: large cities, for instance, voted for Mr. Gore by a 71% to 26%
margin, while small towns and rural areas voted for Mr. Bush by 59%
to 38%. And it should try, as far as possible, to allow those
communities to make decisions for themselves, rather than forcing
them to bow the knee to Washington. Agreeing to disagree offers the
country the best chance of avoiding an endless culture war in which
both sides use the federal government to enforce their views.
Nobody should be more worried about Mr. Ashcroft than conservatives.
Hasn't it usually been the Democratic Party that has championed big
government and Washington-knows-best morality? And hasn't it usually
been the Republican Party that has stood for local variety? In the
1990s the Republicans owed many of their biggest successes--from
welfare reform to school vouchers--to their enthusiasm for
federalism. Mr. Bush owes his job partly to the quintessentially
federalist Electoral College. A mistake by any measure
Mr. Ashcroft's conversion into a centraliser is both hypocritical and
short sighted. It is hypocritical because Mr. Ashcroft was once a
leading critic of big government. As attorney general and then
senator for Missouri, he resisted a federal injunction to desegregate
St. Louis's schools so vigorously that the Southern Partisan, a
neo-Confederate magazine, singled him out for praise.
It is short sighted because, as an evangelical who refrains from
smoking, drinking, dancing and looking at nude statues, Mr. Ashcroft
represents a minority in his own party, let alone the country. He has
no chance of winning the culture wars: the forces arrayed against
him, from the media to the universities, are too vast. The best he
can hope for is a live-and-let-live attitude that gives minority
views like his own room to flourish. Mr. Ashcroft will come to rue
his Faustian bargain with the federal government the next time a
Democrat sits in his office.
--
----
Dale Gieringer (415) 563-5858 // canorml@igc.org
2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by: Oakey at May 8, 2003 01:25 PM
Ffej,
Could you give us some background on Kozinski's ruling? He's not known as a civil libertarian.
On the Patriot Raid, I'd just say: "Welcome to the real world." Blacks and Browns have been subjected to shit like this for years. We hear whining now only because the fascism has moved up the socio-economic/racial ladder. Reminds me of a friend who was getting harassed by some cops. It was dealt with, not by lawsuit, but by negotiations (which is what normally protects corn-fed white boys.) When I explained the campaign of harassment to one of the cops, his response was: "Oh, you mean they're treating him like a nigger?" How true.
And, yeah, when even The Economist critizes Ashcroft, he's way out of line.
Posted by: Dermot at May 8, 2003 01:40 PM
P.S.: Oakey, that article wasn't from the editors of Economist. It appeared in the "Lexington" column, where general comments on the U.S. are made by an anonymous author (they are all anonymous in The Economist, unless there's a conflict of interest.)
Posted by: Dermot at May 8, 2003 01:43 PM
Dermot I would know that doggeral anywhere
Posted by: Oakey at May 8, 2003 01:51 PM
i'm really not interested if he's a libertarian or a liberian. i just like the quote. i didn't even wade through the rest of the decision. who really cares? there's a group of lawyers who get paid to sit around and pretend we still have a judiciary, and another group of twits who get paid to pretend we still have a legislative branch. (well, i could make the arguement that there hasn't been a lawyer in washington since madison got chased out by the british, but this comment is long enough.) keeps 'em off the street. don't make no waves, don't back no loosers. head down and work. pay no attention to what's going on, and remember, since it's always happened to the despised few, it's all right. (what's the lawyer's creedo? oh yes: precedence, either de facto or de jure...) since there's a couple lawyers in the house (even if they are non practicing), i'll include the link to the text, er, PDF. enjoy.
http://www1.law.ucla.edu/~volokh/blog_data/silveira.pdf
(is your lawyer getting enough fees? remember to pay till it hurts! help reinstate the aristocracy in america, TODAY! [brought to by the president's council on autocracy and gentry, dick cheney, chairman])
Posted by: ffej at May 8, 2003 02:56 PM
"since it's always happened to the despised few, it's all right."
Hardly what I meant. What I meant, precisely, is that corn-fed white boys are now getting a taste of the medicine their boys in blue have been administering to the poor and people of color for generations. Forgive me for being sarcastic about their failure to gripe until it was their own ox being gored. And forgive me for expecting that, if the USA Patriot Act dies with its sunset provision, the corn-fed white boys will stop their whining.
Kozinski, a Reaganite, hypocritically decided to read the constitution broadly for once in his life, in this case to argue that the State of California can't ban assault weapons, on the basis of the Second Amendment. Now, I happen to think we SHOULD have a consitutional right to bear arms, but the Second Amendment was not intended to give us that right, and no court has ever held it did, without being reversed.
Reaganites are quite willing to be radical, crating law out of whole cloth, when it serves their poliical agenda.
Posted by: Dermot at May 8, 2003 03:49 PM