End the War on Freedom

Kevin Tuma - Boooed - Cartoon commentary on Hitlary's reception at the Concert for New York. I'm melting... melting... Hehe.

Alan Cooper at the Virginia Times-Dispatch - Court backs felon's gun possession - a small victory for self-defense. Even felons have the right to protect themselves, a common law right. [kaba]

Civil Aviation Security at the Federal Aviation Administration - Frequently Asked Questions - a pretty good outline of current regulations for security screening of airline passengers.

R.V. Scheide at Sacramento News & Review - Homeland Insecurity - one journalist's nightmare with LAX security. He had no such problems in Sacramento. Only in Los Angeles. [unknown]

The National Guard's mission at Sacramento International? To be seen.

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By the time the two plainclothes FBI agents arrived, I had been detained by the LAPD for nearly two hours. One agent was a husky guy in a khaki green Hawaiian shirt. The other agent, Anthony Gordon, had the grizzled, wizened demeanor of character actor Harry Dean Stanton. It didn't take him long to evaluate the situation. Neither the guardsman nor the LAPD had the name of the passenger(s) who had complained about me, so no one could say if I had actually done anything suspicious. After questioning the guardsman and the LAPD, Gordon sat down beside me and quietly explained that the entire nation was on high alert. Everyone's nerves were frayed. Taking the photographs of the checkpoint was completely legal. But the guardsman had served on the California National Guard's Counter-Drug Task Force, and was worried that somehow drug dealers might recognize his photograph if it appeared in the paper.

"He does counter-drug work, that's why he freaked on you," Gordon said.

If the explanation was supposed to soothe, it didn't. I'd been ordered to delete photographs, had my notebook confiscated and read by the police, and detained for three hours with no probable cause--all because the California National Guard had assigned a camera-shy counter-drug person to security duty at the airport? What the hell was he doing there? Gordon just shrugged. Case closed. I was free to go home.

Statement Of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold On The Anti-Terrorism Bill - An October 25 speech by the senator from Wisconsin, the only senator to vote against the final version of H.R.3162, the "USA Patriot Act", before it went to GW for his signing on October 26. Mr. Feingold's speech is also available here, in the Congressional Record. Search for "Feingold" and click on the links for pages S11019 through S11022. [picks]

During those first few hours after the attacks, I kept remembering a sentence from a case I had studied in law school. Not surprisingly, I didn't remember which case it was, who wrote the opinion, or what it was about, but I did remember these words: "While the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it is not a suicide pact." I took these words as a challenge to my concerns about civil liberties at such a momentous time in our history; that we must be careful to not take civil liberties so literally that we allow ourselves to be destroyed.

But upon reviewing the case itself, Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, I found that Justice Arthur Goldberg had made this statement but then ruled in favor of the civil liberties position in the case, which was about draft evasion. He elaborated:

"It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action. "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances ... In no other way can we transmit to posterity unimpaired the blessings of liberty, consecrated by the sacrifices of the Revolution."

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Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists.

But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.

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But under this bill, the government can compel the disclosure of the personal records of anyone -- perhaps someone who worked with, or lived next door to, or went to school with, or sat on an airplane with, or has been seen in the company of, or whose phone number was called by -- the target of the investigation.

And under this new provisions all business records can be compelled, including those containing sensitive personal information like medical records from hospitals or doctors, or educational records, or records of what books someone has taken out of the library. This is an enormous expansion of authority, under a law that provides only minimal judicial supervision.

Under this provision, the government can apparently go on a fishing expedition and collect information on virtually anyone. All it has to allege in order to get an order for these records from the court is that the information is sought for an investigation of international terrorism or clandestine intelligence gathering. That's it. On that minimal showing in an ex parte application to a secret court, with no showing even that the information is relevant to the investigation, the government can lawfully compel a doctor or hospital to release medical records, or a library to release circulation records. This is a truly breathtaking expansion of police power.

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In the play, "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More questions the bounder Roper whether he would level the forest of English laws to punish the Devil. "What would you do?" More asks, "Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?" Roper affirms, "I'd cut down every law in England to do that." To which More replies:

"And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast . . . and if you cut them down . . . d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."

Jerry Pournelle - The Price of Empire - (my title, not his). Jerry relates that the U.S. doesn't seem to know what it wants from the Afghan war. In order to figure it out, we have to decide whether we're a republic or an empire. Good rhetoric, but what do you mean "we", white man? Will likely move here next week. [pournelle]

gotlaughs.com - Osama bin Laden, Nowhere to run - Nowhere to hide - a musical Flash animation. Cartoon commentary on the price of war. Watch it to the end. The tone of the whole piece is changed by the final scene. [pournelle]

Day-o, day-ee-ay-o
Daylight come and we drop the bomb...

Come Mr. Taliban turn over bin Laden
Daylight come and we drop the bomb...

Russell Madden at Laissez Faire City Times - Your Papers, Please - musings on the national ID.

Not to be left out, Congressman Richard Gephardt sadly informs us that, "This event will change the balance between freedom and security."

How true. Sadly, how true. Why is it, though, that during a crisis, the balance never tilts in favor of more freedom, the only avenue we have for ever achieving real security?

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The price of this battle is eternal vigilance. If citizens succumb to their fears, to their emotions, and fail to heed the lessons of history we will soon be saddled with de jure national ID cards that "violate the most basic of American liberties: the right to be left alone." (ACLU) National ID cards are an "infringement of the citizen's right to remain anonymous if he chooses." [Johnston]

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