I don't like the unputation that we are doing nothing. You don't know what you are talking about. Guild, ACLU, and CCR lawyers are involved in both oprganized and unorganized ways; contact the CCCR (Center for Const. Rights)in NYC for more details. Let me tell you the people in Chicago who are being "voluntarily interviewed," never mind disappeared, are scared shitless, desperately concerned to prove their patriotism by cooperating, and not the least interested in standing up for the civil liberties of all Americans. -- jks
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I am probing (and goading) to get some news out of you and other lawyers on the list. There is very little in the ordinary media. I believe you, if you tell me NLG, ACLU, CCCR and others are working away. That's want I wanted to hear---that something is happening. Good. If these activities don't make it into the news, there is no other way to know about them.
I went looking around at CCCR's website and found one essay on the us patriot act---which I refuse to capitalize. If I could subscript it I would. Have you tried reading it? It is obscure and badly written in the extreme. It mostly amends Clinton's 1996(?) bill and others, so you need both on the table in front of you in order to follow what is said, and what is being replaced. Somebody posted a website reference for it last fall, and I tried to read it back then. I could barely follow it without Clinton's bad bill along side. On the other hand, it is convenient that bad law is usually badly written. If it reads like shit, sounds like shit, smells like shit, hey, it must be.
I was evidently not the only one wondering if the judicial branch has any intention of either safeguarding the people's liberties, or their own substantive powers against the flagrant and abusive intrusions by the executive branch.
Here is the concluding excerpt (The USA PATRIOT Act: What's So Patriotic About Trampling on the Bill of Rights?, Nov 2001, from http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp):
III. Will the Judiciary Rein in the Executive and Uphold the Bill of
Rights?
Our commitment to the Bill of Rights and to the democratic values that define this nation has been put to the test by the events of September 11. Already, Congress and the Administration have demonstrated their eagerness to sacrifice civil liberties in hopes of gaining an added semblance of security. The task of upholding the Bill of Rights - or acquiescing in its surrender - will soon fall to the judiciary, as lawsuits testing the constitutionality of the USA PATRIOT Act wind their way through the courts.
In what we have come to regard as some of the most shameful episodes in our history, the judiciary has consistently bowed to the wishes of the political branches of government in times of crisis by finding the state interest in national security to be paramount to all competing interests. During World War I, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of socialist Eugene Debs for expressing his opposition to World War I, refusing to recognize his non-violent, anti-war advocacy as speech protected by the First Amendment.75 More recently, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II, the Supreme Court upheld an Executive Order mandating the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants based solely on their ancestry, refusing to recognize their preventive detention as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.76
The extent to which the judiciary will defer to the Administration's views on the troubling First and Fourth Amendment issues presented by the USA PATRIOT Act, tolerate ethnic and ideological profiling by the Administration as it implements the Act, and allow the due process rights of immigrants in detention to be eroded remains to be seen. Certainly, the more anxious the times become, the more likely the judiciary will be to side with the Administration - at least where it is convinced that the measures are vital to the national security, are not motivated by discriminatory intent, and tread as lightly as possible upon civil liberties. The recent words of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who so often figures as the swing vote on pivotal decisions, do not hold out hope for a vigorous defense of our political freedoms by the judiciary. Following a visit to Ground Zero, where the World Trade Centers once stood, the Justice bleakly predicted, "We're likely to experience more restrictions on personal freedom than has ever been the case in this country."77
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Chuck Grimes