Tag Archives: Bill of Rights

Obama Administration Pot Calls Out Pakistani Kettle

31 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Bill of Rights, drone strikes, Justice Department, Obama, Obama administration, Pakistan, torture, war on terror

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From the Department of Blatant Hypocrisy, Do As I Say, Not As I Do Division:

“The Obama administration is expressing alarm over reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents have disappeared into the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and that some may have been tortured or killed.

The concern is over a steady stream of accounts from human rights groups that Pakistan’s security services have rounded up thousands of people over the past decade, mainly in Baluchistan, a vast and restive province far from the fight with the Taliban, and are holding them incommunicado without charges.”

Welcome to the Hotel Gitmo. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

“Separately, the report also described concerns that the Pakistani military had killed unarmed members of the Taliban, rather than put them on trial.

…Two months ago, the United States took the unusual step of refusing to train or equip about a half-dozen Pakistani Army units that are believed to have killed unarmed prisoners and civilians during recent offensives against the Taliban. The most recent State Department report contains some of the administration’s most pointed language about accusations of such so-called extrajudicial killings.”

Kind of like this?

“From the moment he stepped foot inside the White House, Obama set about expanding and escalating a covert CIA program of “targeted killings” inside Pakistan, using Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles..that had been started by the Bush administration in 2004.

On 23 January 2009, just three days after being sworn in, Obama ordered his first set of air strikes inside Pakistan; one is said to have killed four Arab fighters linked to al-Qaida but the other hit the house of a pro-government tribal leader, killing him and four members of his family, including a five-year-old child.

…During his first nine months in office he authorised as many aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W Bush did in his final three years in the job…According to the New America Foundation thinktank in Washington DC, the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan more than doubled in 2010, to 115. That is an astonishing rate of around one bombing every three days inside a country with which the US is not at war.”

And then there’s this from the Obstruction of Justice Department, Look Forward Division:

“The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected a request from prosecutors in Warsaw for assistance in the investigation into the alleged CIA prisons in Poland, where captives claim they were tortured. On 18 March, the Prosecutor’s Office of Appeal in Warsaw filed a motion for legal assistance from the US Department of Justice into the probe…[T]he US informed prosecutors that the motion had been rejected on the basis of the international Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and that the U.S. authorities consider the matter “to be closed”.

So far, the U.S. Justice Department has failed to comply with its treaty obligations to supply information requested by prosecutors in Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland who are probing allegations of kidnapping, false arrest, assault, and torture by persons believed to be CIA agents in connection with extraordinary rendition operations.”

This has, by far, been my biggest disappointment with the current administration. Legislative policies are one thing-legislation can be amended, superseded, or repealed. But by continuing, and in some cases expanding upon, the Bush administration “war on terror” tactics, and pursuing this “look forward, not back” lunacy, it has now become the accepted and established policy of two successive administrations—one Republican and one Democratic–that the United States of America now condones actions (indefinite detention without charges, denial of due process) that were once upon a time (pre-9/11) considered a violation of our Bill of Rights.

It also lets other countries that enter into treaties with us know that we will abide by the conditions of those treaties only so far as it is convenient and politically expedient for us to do so, and denies us any credibility on the world stage when it comes to the condemnation of other country’s human rights violations.

In short, we prove to the world that America is a nation of preachers and not practicers.

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Sharron Angle: Jefferson “Misquoted Out of Context” on Separation of Church and State

01 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by in Bill of Rights, Congress, Conservatives, Constitution, Politics, Republicans

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In an interview with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle, was asked to defend a 1995 statement in which she said, “the tenet of the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional doctrine.” Angle’s response was that “Thomas Jefferson has been misquoted…out of context.” Watch:

OK, here’s Thomas Jefferson in context, from his often-quoted letter to the Danbury Baptists:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Jefferson repeats verbatim the text of the First Amendment, that Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” followed his own words, “thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” Look up any definition of “thus” and you will see synonyms such as therefore, hence, and consequently. Substitute any of those words for “thus” in Jefferson’s letter and the meaning is crystal clear.

That’s Jefferson. What about the widely-acknowledged “Father of the Constitution” and the man who proposed the Bill of Rights to the first Congress—James Madison. What were his thoughts on the subject?

“Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).

Madison even saw the appointment of chaplains as a violation of the establishment clause:

“Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

Ms. Angle, when it comes to matters of the Founders and the Constitution, speak not of what you know not. And don’t believe everything you read on a sign at a Tea Party.

Obama Administration “Quietly Maneuvering” to Renew Patriot Act

29 Tuesday Dec 2009

Posted by in George W. Bush, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized, war on terror

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More of George W. Bush’s third term, coming at us while our attention is focused elsewhere:

“With key sections of the U.S. Patriot Act set to expire Dec. 31, the Obama administration – essentially tiptoeing through the corridors of Congress and using the raucous health care debate as cover – has quietly maneuvered for renewal of the controversial provisions, which he opposed as a senator.

This week, with time running out and no time to debate the bill on its merits, Democratic supporters of reauthorization in the Senate tried but fail to win House support to embed the provisions in a separate $626 billion Pentagon funding bill. The House has passed a bill with stronger civil liberties protections, but that version is not expected to survive.”

Well, of course not. We don’t need no stinkin’civil liberties. Safety at all costs, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights be damned.

“Perhaps the most contentious measure is the business records provision, also known as the library provision, which allows the government to seek a court order forcing private entities such as banks, hospitals, and libraries to hand over “any tangible thing” – from library circulation records to medical records – officials think is relevant in a terrorist investigation.”

“Think” is relevant? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Just another outdated, pre-9/11 concept, I suppose.

“Earlier this year, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) had worked to place language in the bill strengthening civil liberties protections, but in the judiciary committee the Obama administration worked with Republicans to craft seven amendments, effectively watering down Feingold’s work.”

Ain’t bi-partisanship a beautiful thing?

“Feingold did win an amendment that restricts so-called “sneak and peek” searches that allow the government to enter a home and perform a search without having to inform the subject of the search until months later. The senator’s amendment requires that subjects of sneak-and-peek searches be notified within seven days, unless a judge grants an extension.”
Nice caveat. Now here’s the reality.

“In 2008, the federal government reported 763 sneak-and-peak warrant requests and 528 requests for extensions, as of the year ending Sept. 30, 2008. Four of the applications were denied…Only three of the 763 warrant requests were terrorism related. Sixty-five percent concerned drug investigations.”

Here are the three provisions which the Bush Obama administration is “quietly maneuvering” to renew. More openness and transparency.

“The first…would allow a secret court to continue to permit “roving wiretaps” without the government identifying who is being targeted, or which specific phone lines or communication devices are to be monitored. What officials must do is assert that the target is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist.

Under the “lone wolf” statute, the U.S. may target for surveillance non-U.S. persons it believes are engaging in terrorism or are preparing to undertake terrorist activities, whether or not that person can be linked to a foreign power or organization. Previously, the government had to establish such a link.”

The second provision, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, permits the FBI to ask a FISA, or secret court, to order the production of any item relevant to a FISA investigation…As with roving wiretaps, the government must assert that the records are relevant to foreign intelligence gathering and/or a terrorism investigation.

What a difference 3 years makes:

“As an Illinois senator in 2005, Barack Obama opposed the core of these provisions when they were up for renewal then, saying he wanted to safeguard the country from terrorist attack but had concerns about seeking business records and the wiretapping language.

Three years later, however, Obama was singing a different tune, voting to allow warrantless wiretaps of Americans’ calls if they were communicating overseas with somebody the government believed was linked to terrorism.”

Quite a “change,” huh?