Restore Civil Liberties Issue 2012

If elected I will introduce legislation that will bring an end to:

THE USA PATRIOT ACT

MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT OF 2009

THE TARGETED ASSASSINATION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS

THE INDEFINITE DETENTION OF AMERICAN AS WELL AS FOREIGN BORN CITIZENS: (NDAA OF 2012)

In 2006 the Bush administration with a Republican majority in Congress passed the Military Commissions Act which stripped detainees of essential rights and expanded the definition of an enemy combatant giving the president the power to detain them indefinitely. In 2006, Obama was one of 34 senators (32 Democrats, one independent and one Republican) who voted against the Military Commissions Act. He called it a “flawed document” that betrayed American values. As president, in 2009, after certain provisions of the 2006 act had been overruled by the Supreme Court he, along with a Democratic majority in Congress, passed a new version of the Bush regime legislation.

The Obama version of the law begins by tweaking the definition of individuals eligible for trial before the military commissions – most obviously by scrapping the phrase "unlawful enemy combatant" and replacing it with "unprivileged enemy belligerent". This is purely a cosmetic change; the kind of change we have come to expect from the Democrats, not a real improvement.

The Obama version is so overboard that it even fails to exempt children from its jurisdiction – or, more specifically, the class of those people who allegedly committed some kind of offense when they were under the age of 18!

Interestingly the Obama version of the law of liberty only covers aliens. This is a problem because by singling out only aliens to be subjected to the jurisdiction of military commissions, the law arbitrarily discriminates on the basis of citizenship, violating US international rights and obligations under the Geneva Conventions and contravening the Equal Protection Clause under the Constitution. This is very telling of Obama and the Democrats because if the truth is that the commissions are too unfair to be used on US citizens, they are really too unfair to be used on anyone!

The commissions remain not only illegal but unnecessary. The federal courts have proven themselves capable of handling complex terrorism cases while protecting both the government's and national security interests and the defendants' rights to a fair trial.

In summary, the 2009 Military Commissions Act:

• UNDERMINES THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW
• MAKES THE PRESIDENT BOTH JUDGE AND JURY
• REJECTS CORE AMERICAN VALUES

TARGETED ASSASSINATION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS

While it was very likely that President Bush targeted and assassinated American citizens it did not become the formal policy of the United States until President Obama took office. What was a war crime under the Bush administration has now become policy under Obama.

A missile fired from an American drone aircraft in Yemen on Friday October 23, 2011 murdered the American citizen Mr. Anwar al-Awlaki, reputed to have been the leader of an Al Qaeda’s affiliate in this country, according to an official in Washington. An American citizen assassinated by an American president! So much for the Constitution! So much for the Bill of Rights! So much for traditional American values!

Along with Mr. Al-Awlaki, Mr. Samir Khan, another American citizen was murdered. Regardless of what these men might have done, as American citizens they were to have been afforded all rights under our Constitution just as the terrorist Timothy McVeigh who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.

No due process was accorded.  No charges or trials were necessary.  No evidence was offered, nor any opportunity for him to deny these accusations (which he has done vehemently through his family).  None of that core American values stuff for President Obama.

No one is likely to mourn al-Awlaki himself but we should mourn that his assassination happened at all and that such murders are likely to happen routinely in the future. The Obama administration has demonstrated once again, as it did in Libya and as it's done in a variety of surveillance cases, that its view of executive power in the arena of national security is hardly any less expansive than Dick Cheney's was. This was predictable makes it no less alarming. Regardless of how any of us feels about war making in general, there are very good reasons that national governments are more constrained in their ability to kill their own citizens than in their ability to kill foreigners, constraints enshrined in both the explicit rules and longstanding traditions of due process. That bright line has grown a lot dimmer today.

THE INDEFINITE DETENTION OF US CITIZENS: NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT (NDAA)
 
The passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a federal statute essentially meant to codify the Guantanamo approach to justice, was not only condemned by right wing radio announcer Rush Limbaugh as “total authoritarianism”. It was similarly condemned by liberal law professor Jonathan Turley who warned that it was “one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country”. This was an unusual and possibly unprecedented coincidence of views but indicates that this policy of the Obama administration hateful to all Americans.