To Heiko: Curtailment of Civil Liberties
I'm putting together a package of info and links to answer your question about the curtailment of civil liberties in the US so that you don't just have to take my word for it.
American Civil Liberties Union : Summary of the USA PATRIOT Act and Other Government Acts
American Civil Liberties Union : USA PATRIOT Act : Further Analysis
American Civil Liberties Union : Section 215 FAQ
Center for Constitutional Rights: CCR
American Civil Liberties Union : Summary of the USA PATRIOT Act and Other Government Acts
American Civil Liberties Union : USA PATRIOT Act : Further Analysis
American Civil Liberties Union : Section 215 FAQ
Center for Constitutional Rights: CCR
posted by smokey spice at 1:20 PM
7 Comments:
maybe if you wrote more, there would be more to comment on?
Hey there James. Ok, I realize that writing more might be more interesting, but right now it's a time issue and I'm still in the process of learning my way around this whole blog thing.
Also, this particular post was really addressing a discusion that was taking place in the comments section of another post. I don't know if that changes anything, but perhaps I should have stated it regardless.
First, thanks for the links and sorry for the late reply.
GM is the only Egyptian blogger I am aware of:
http://www.bigpharaoh.blogspot.com/
(my reply to Highlander is in the comments section to the post "Terror hits home")
What I like about the links is that they do not argue merely on the "we hate Bush" type of line, which I find frustrating.
http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=11437&c=111
Ok, so they finish here by saying:
"Thus, domestic terrorism could include acts which �cause serious physical injury or death� rather than all acts that are �dangerous to human life.� This more narrow definition will exclude the conduct of organizations and individuals that engage in minor acts of property damage or violence."
Which I find very reasonable. The only trouble with the whole argument I have is
that I cannot see Al Sharpton's property being confiscated because he'd support the Vieques Island protesters.
Yes, from the article I understand that the law could be read that way, but then again the Quaran gets read by some people as an instruction to cut the heads off unbelievers.
And I don't think the changed definition would help that much, acts which cause serious physical injury or death would still allow (in theory) the government to cease Al Sharpton's assets for providing a meal to some Greenpeace activists who cause a tanker to veer off a bridge, or a boat to hit some rocks etc...
I think that surely (?) 90% plus of judges and of the American public will only accept organisations as sponsoring "domestic terrorism" (with that far reaching consequences that people's assets could be taken away from them for providing mere "support"), if that refers to their willingness to kill hundreds of millions, just for the sake of killing, assuming they'd have the means to do so. That's the kind of definition applicable to Osama bin Laden or the Japanese Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth) sect and not very many other organisations, certainly not Greenpeace.
I recently read a lot about Anne Frank's life, which made me very sad,
sorry to finish here for the moment (I am not happy with what I've written so far), but my wife is stressed and in need of my practical help (household chores), so I'll have to leave for the moment.
I've heard fairly little about Muslims being treated badly in the US itself. I did come across a website Muslims for Bush though, and they opposed the Patriot Act I think. But that group, Muslims for Bush, also pointed out that Bush had made it clear (as any democratic leader should, of course, I am sure Clinton would have said the same, possibly a little bit more eloquently) that America was proud of its Muslim citizens, that there was no room for racism etc...
What I have heard a fair bit about is Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. I understand that there aren't all that many detainees in Guantanamo, and they are classed as "enemy combatants", ie prisoners of war that have forfeited some of their Geneva convention rights, as they didn't stick to the requirements for lawful combatants defined in the Geneva convention. This seems very reasonable to me, after all they did get picked up (near exclusively) on Afghan battlefields, and they weren't Afghan soldiers, but members of Al-Quaeda.
Prison abuse is bad, and as any democracy should, the perpetrators are being brought to justice. But prison abuse also happens aplenty in the US itself, with White Christians the victims.
The US has imprisoned fairly few people in Iraq. In Germany after WWII, there was massive internment (and often merely because of party membership). Germany got absolutely crushed after WWII, after bombing raids that blotted out whole cities (and killed my wife's aunt for example, Dueren was 98% destroyed, a total wasteland with virtually nothing left standing), there were 10 million internal refugees (that's equivalent to 40% of today's Iraqi population being forcibly moved out) and 3 million soldiers under American command secured the country with people being forcefed anti Nazi educational materials. There was no resistance, not because Nazis wouldn't have wanted to resist, but because they were met with overwhelming force. A Faluja couldn't happen, any city behaving like that would have been flattened (like Dueren) never mind any civilian casualties.
And yes, I am glad the US did what it did in Germany.
In my comments to highlander on GM's blog, I talk about the difference between law enforcement killing innocents and terrorists/criminals doing so.
The key difference is that a government must police the territory under its control, if it doesn't there is anarchy. In the US, the government will readily shoot down a plane with 100 innocents in it rather than allow it to be flown into a building. In Iraq, the interim government must seek out terrorists. There is just no alternative, if you don't want to hand the country over on a platter to Zarqawi.
I don't accept violent resistance as legitimate in Iraq. There'll be elections soon, people with a grievance can participate in those. All the beheadings etc.. do is to make Iraqis worse off.
With the "wedding party" I am sceptical myself, because I remember the last time a wedding party was supposedly hit, and at the time a soldier blogger whom I trusted said he was there, and there was no wedding party, and the whole thing was propaganda being fed to the media by the terrorists, or people intimidated by them.
I don't know myself what's happened, but I am very cautious at accepting the wedding story got hit line without questioning, particularly, when the US military has a different version to offer.
But even if a wedding party did get hit, I honestly think that the US military would have tried its best to hit terrorists and not innocents, and furthermore, that there was a moral duty on them, as being responsible for security, to engage in acts that could potentially harm innocents, and that applies to the US itself as much as it does to Iraq. A police officer has a duty to hunt down criminals. If a car chase then kills 20 school children in a bus by mistake, that's something that should be worked against, but the likelihood of this sort of thing can only be minimised. It cannot be reduced to zero without giving criminals a free ride. And it's a lot easier to avoid innocents being killed in the US, than it is in Iraq, where Saddam let 70,000 criminals out just before the invasion, where the police has to be rebuilt from scratch, where Zarqawi got sheltered by Saddam before the invasion allowing him to get ready for his terrorist business, where the US has not crushed the will to "resist" as thoroughly (and brutally) as it did in Germany after WWII.
Well Heiko... that was quite a long post, and very telling of your political stance. Can you please add posts of where you're getting your information and analysis of current events? You know, like evidence to support your arguments.
If you've heard little about Muslims being treated badly in the US since 9/11, you haven't been paying attention either because you don't want to or you've simply overlooked events over the last 3 years. Sorry to be so blunt but this is the only explanation in my humble opinion.
And a website for Muslims for Bush is probably not going to draw anyone's attention to the institutional targeting of Muslims, is it? I should think you would know that and also know that such a site doesn't change the fact that 13,000 Muslims have been rounded up and detained under new immigration policies that are specific to immigrants from Muslim countries. These kinds of policies are on-going: as demonstrated by this article.
Bush had strong Muslim support last time around too. Still doesn't change anything from my perspective. Muslims had interests that they believed Bush would be good for and Liberman's strongly Zionist political stance lent more support to Bush. At the time, I thought that it was ludicrous to support the likes of Bush for several reasons, and I maintain that stance in this election. Then again, I'm not interested in condemning same-sex marriages OR providing funds to religious organizations since I am a secularist.
Prisoner Abuse Topic:
I'm not clear on what your point is in that section of your comment. You seem to be collapsing a number of things to make the point that it's not all that bad... or at least not as bad as it was in Germany after WWII. You might as be comparing apples and oranges with bananas and carrots.
First, not all or even the majority of those detained in Guantanamo are/were with al-Qaida. Report after report have come out saying that little significant intelligence has come out of those detained. You know why? Because there was no method to the madness of rounding up and deeming people 'enemy combatants'. Even the Supreme Court here has found its voice recently by stating that some procedure had to be instated for these prisoners...some process of law to figure out who should be there and who shouldn't and to get people out. I don't understand why you would argue that people should be detained indefinitely with no due process of law. Or does law only apply to those we decide it applies to?
The 'enemy combatant' status doesn't apply to Iraqis imprisoned in Iraq by coalition forces, unless of course you think that all those imprisoned in Iraq are also with al-Qaida. If you do think that, then we really don't see eye to eye. The New Yorker has a fabulously comprehensive article about the extent the US messed up at Abu Ghraib based on fact.
"Prison abuse is bad, and as any democracy should, the perpetrators are being brought to justice. But prison abuse also happens aplenty in the US itself, with White Christians the victims."
HUH? Yes, prison abuse happens in the US. Is this supposed to make it acceptable? If someone else jumps off a bridge, are we supposed to too?
Come on, Heiko, there's a huge difference between American prisoners here in the US and prisoners in a country that the US is occupying. The US invaded Iraq claiming it as a preventative measure. We heard stories of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis, of democracy flourishing in the middle east. Imprisoning and torturing thousands of Iraqi's, again with no clear procedures of determining innocence or guilt or even a requirement to charge them, does neither liberate nor win hearts and minds.
If you're waiting for 40% of the Iraqi population to be detained in order to be alarmed, all I can say is WOW. There are clear signs of things gone wrong and to simplify things so that we can feel better about the situation is inexcusable. Zarqawi isn't behind everything that happens in Iraq; he's one of many. There are people who support neither Zarqawi nor Sadr that are fighting the coalition occupation and everything that's happening under the cloak of 'democratization'. Can you imagine that not everyone is happy to host American bases, especially the largest American bases in the Middle East?
Let me also remind you that the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and Germany in WWII are incomparable, and I would hope you know why. This war was one option of many if the goal was to stop a madman. WWII was not a choice.
"And yes, I am glad the US did what it did in Germany."
You have the right to be happy with what the US did in Germany, and I have the right to say that the use of indescriminate violence is never the only solution and is often unecessary.
The extreme bombings in Germany were not about Hitler, were they? They were about crushing morale, crushing a people, crushing an economy. There was no claim of 'liberating' the Germans as all Germans were demonized. Are you saying that Iraqis are guilty and thus that the overwhelming use of violence is necessary to win their hearts and minds?
What exactly are you saying?
As for the rest of the comment, I'll go check out the egyptian blog to get the context of it.
But for this statement: "In the US, the government will readily shoot down a plane with 100 innocents in it rather than allow it to be flown into a building"
That's what everyone else thought until 9/11 when 4 planes went missing for quite a long time with no one noticing.
With all due respect, Heiko, your analysis seem to be based on a selective examination of the facts. I've studied this subject extensively. I am aware of what was going on in Iraq before the US decided to liberate the poor Iraqis and aware of the likely consequences of occupation.
From the beginning of this, Iraqis have stated repeatedly "Thank you for getting rid of Saddam; now get out"... they didn't say "Thanks, hey stay around for awhile, build 5 HUGE bases, imprison us, re-educate us, show us your holy modern ways". I think it's time the US and the UK gets out.
On Monday I took a flight from Birmingham (UK) to Amsterdam. I was on a way to a meeting in Brussels (The European Commision providing information to people interested in applying for funds supporting renewable energy research, which happens to be my area of work). I met a really nice lady, Leah, who was on her way to Berlin to visit a friend and to talk to children in schools as a Zeitzeuge (a witness of the time when Hitler reigned). She is Jewish and had to flee Germany at age 19 in 1938, and then went to Israel/Palestine, which she left in 1945 to live in England. Her friend in Berlin was a teaching assistant in 1971 and stayed with her as a lodger and they've been friends ever since. The visit is paid for by the German state to help educate children about the horror's of Hitler's reign.
I know what Germany and Britain are like for Jews and Muslims today, and what Germany was like for Jews in the early 1930's. Leah said that many people just think of the concentration camps and forget about how the rights of Jews were taken away systematically, one after the other, in the thirties. Jews had done nothing wrong and had been good German citizens for centuries.
Hitler started off with minor things, but he was very clear in his anti-semitic rhetoric from the start.
I don't live in the US, but I have listened to many Americans, via weblogs from the US and Iraq, or because I've met them in person over here, I have read many of Clinton's, Kerry's and Bush's speeches, and there is nothing in them suggesting that Muslims are second class human beings who should be persecuted.
I can give you plenty of quotes there, but you are surely aware of the main points (racism is evil, Muslims are good citizens we are proud of, Islam is entirely compatible with democracy and being a good American ...).
But you live in the US and I don't, so I wanted to know more clearly what you meant with your concerns, and I appreciate having heard them in some detail.
You wanted to know where I get my information and analysis from. A lot of diverse sources, from bloggers to government or NGO statistics. I don't have a TV, buy newspapers or listen to radio news. Have a look at GM's blog and what I wrote there in the comments section on why that is.
Muslims for Bush http://www.muslimsforbush.com/ are opposed to the Patriot Act and worried about the treatment of Muslim immigrants.
But, like them, I am a lot more worried about the treatment of Muslims and other groups outside the US by their governments or terrorist organisations. I think that Iraq's problem is not "the occupation", but the vicious combination of Baathists and Salafi fundamentalists who even threaten school teachers with beheading for the crime of going to work. You sometimes hear about polls where a majority of Iraqis want American troops out. However, if you ask people to prioritise, only 6% say that their top priority is the Americans leaving, while the vast majority list security as their absolute top concern.
This is entirely in line with what I hear from Iraqis themselves.
Going back to the US, I am concerned about the treatment of immigrants, and this is also a problem over here in Europe, though it applies to most economic migrants. I am looking forward to free movement of people across the whole globe (just like in Europe now, where I can live in any country I like with no restrictions imposed on me), and am unhappy with the current situation, where, if you don't hold a European passport, you do get a hard time.
Mostly I think, European concerns about immigration are mistaken. I would grant that there are some groups who refuse to integrate to the point of forming little enclaves riddled with crime and poverty (like Alum Rock, where I've lived for 4 years), and that this sort of situation needs to be addressed in order to avoid creating potential troublespots (the "how" is a bit tricky, but I mean solutions born of genuine concern rather than racism).
Going back to the topic of prisoner abuse. I want those who committed it at Abu Ghraib punished. And that's, largely, where for me the issue ends. You use it as an argument for leaving the Iraqi people at the mercy of Zarqawi and Baathists.
You are completely correct that WWII vastly differs from the situation in Iraq. From a military point of view, collateral damage can be avoided much more easily, because the capabilities of the opponent are largely limited to terrorist type actions. This is not a conventional war, even in Vietnam there was a conventional army waiting in the wings to run over the South with tanks, and the North had the support of China and Russia. As far as I am concerned, we are dealing with a "policing operation", and currently that is at the request of the Iraqi interim government.
Now you mention that little information got gleaned from prisoners in Guantanamo. You seem to forget that prisoners of war can be held indefinitely without them holding any priviledged information or having committed any crimes. For most prisoners of war, all that needs to be ascertained is that they are members of ennemy forces, and under the Geneva Conventions, they have to admit to their allegiance (my understanding is that refusing to give their rank forfeits some of their priviledges as ordinary prisoners of war).
Don't get me wrong, I do think that there may be, at least in principle, some valid concerns about the procedure employed for deciding who is an ennemy combatant and who has got final authority. I just don't think it's a "we need to prevent this to ensure the US doesn't turn fascist" type of issue. There are much more pressing issues to be addressed than the fate of a few hundred prisoners largely picked up on Afghanistan's battlefields by US forces. Personally, I believe that they were all picked up fighting against US forces, and therefore that there is likely little case for not classifying them as ennemy combatants.
Prisoners in Iraq are now all held at the request of the Iraqi interim government, and yes there should be good procedures in place. But you seem to argue not for better procedures, but along the line that fundamentally the US forces have bad intentions and ulterior motives (I haven't yet seen one good explanation of what these ulterior motives would be).
No, I am not waiting for 40% of Iraq's population to be detained before becoming alarmed. I am, however, much more alarmed at the threat to Iraqis by Baathists and Zaraqawi's ilk than I am at the prospect that American forces, due to bad procedure, may be holding some people who are innocent.
Yes, Zarquawi is not the only one fighting the US, but an example of the worst methods, including threatening hairdressers!!! just for doing their job (source, Najma's blog, I don't see any reason why she would be lying about this). I don't think there is any legitimacy in violent opposition, there are better choices, like participating in the elections, or non-violent protest. The kind of anti-government violence practised in Iraq achieves nothing for Iraqis.
I am certain that the US does not intend to keep troops in Iraq for any longer than necessary. Yes, I do understand that many Iraqis are concerned about US forces on their soil, but I also understand that 99+% don't take that as a reason to personally become involved in attacks, and 99+% condemn the tactics employed by the Salafists.
I disagree with you that "This war was one option of many if the goal was to stop a madman". Short of an invasion, how would you have removed Saddam from power?
Finally on a pretty much unrelated point, you say "that's [that a plane would be shot down, if necessary] what everyone else thought until 9/11 when 4 planes went missing for quite a long time with no one noticing." From my research on the issue ("did the US, apparently on purpose, choose not to pursue these planes?"), my conclusion is it's a conspiracy theory without any basis in fact. Procedure was followed as it should have been and there was not enough time to shoot the planes down.
Sorry for taking so long to respond... election season's keeping me busy.
You said: "I want those who committed it at Abu Ghraib punished. And that's, largely, where for me the issue ends. You use it as an argument for leaving the Iraqi people at the mercy of Zarqawi and Baathists."
Come again? Either what I wrote is completely unclear or you just twisted my words. Can you point out exactly which part of my previous post heralded Zarqawi or the Baathists as the heroes?
For me and many others, the Abu Ghraib scandal is symptomatic of a larger problem--the problem being occupation.
Everyone from the Kurds to the Sunnis to the Shia have been telling the US to get out. Now, you, Heiko, may interpret this as wanting to be left at the mercy of Zarqawi or the Bathists. But there remains another interpretation: That the people of Iraq want to deal with it on their own without further complications by foreign interference. This is a right I believe is their's.
As far as I am concerned, we are dealing with a "policing operation", and currently that is at the request of the Iraqi interim government.
You said: "Now you mention that little information got gleaned from prisoners in Guantanamo. You seem to forget that prisoners of war can be held indefinitely without them holding any priviledged information or having committed any crimes. For most prisoners of war, all that needs to be ascertained is that they are members of ennemy forces, and under the Geneva Conventions, they have to admit to their allegiance (my understanding is that refusing to give their rank forfeits some of their priviledges as ordinary prisoners of war).
I think you forgot the context of my statement and were responding to something else. I was saying that this enemy combatant status used to hold those in Guantanamo indefinitely) has been of little benefit. For the human and financial cost of holding a few thousand people, hardly any significant information has been uncovered. This fact has been acknowledged by many within and outside the pentagon.
"There are much more pressing issues to be addressed than the fate of a few hundred prisoners largely picked up on Afghanistan's battlefields by US forces."
Pray do tell me, what is more important than how a state's legal apparatus changes in trying times? Because I was under the impression that trying times are what make or break a democracatic form of government. As you should well know, it's always the 'Emergency' laws that begin the institutional reorganization of a state from democratic to authoritarian.
You may not worry about the US turning anything. That's fine because you don't live here. I do care because it's the legal system based on constitutional and universal rights that I admire most in this country.
"Prisoners in Iraq are now all held at the request of the Iraqi interim government, and yes there should be good procedures in place. But you seem to argue not for better procedures, but along the line that fundamentally the US forces have bad intentions and ulterior motives (I haven't yet seen one good explanation of what these ulterior motives would be)."
You're right Heiko, I'm not arguing for 'better procedures' though I think they are necessary too. I'm arguing that they shouldn't be there; that there is little justification for most to be held; that the entire thing is a mess; and, yes, that the US's ulterior motives should not be paid for by Iraqi lives.
Speaking of ulterior motives (seen or unseen), what exactly do you think the motives are, Heiko? Liberating Iraq? Even the Iraqi's who are cooperative realize that wasn't it.
This is what I find interesting about your opinion. You're okay with anything the US does militarily or legally as a security need. You perceive the US's actions as rational. Yet, you can't extend that same perspective to others that are at the other end of the US's 'security' measures. Can you really not perceive that the US is a threat to others?
It's been established that there are no WMD's thus Iraq was not a threat to England or the US. It's been established that the US didn't know enough about what it was getting into in Iraq--partly because they ignored important intelligence and partly because they didn't care. It's been established that the Ministry of Petrolium was protected before anything else; that American soldiers were ill-equiped and that they were not taught anything about Iraq or the people of Iraq or even the Geneva Conventions.
And yet you seem to find justification for everything based on 'the boogy-man/terrorist is coming' with little knowledge of the fine print.
"Short of an invasion, how would you have removed Saddam from power?"
Oh... you mean that was the point? I would say they should have thought of that BEFORE supporting him militarily and financially at the expense of the Iraqi people. Also, what ever happened to the right to sovereignty? It's not the US's right to decide when they've gotten tired of another nation's ruler, as far as I can see.
About 9/11 and the planes...it's not a conspiracy theory that the US security aparatus failed on 9/11. They failed to keep track of intelligence and they failed to track the planes on that morning for at least a half hour. They have better capabilities than that.
Heiko, I don't deal in conspiracy theories. Do me the favor of not addressing me like I do because my opinion is different.
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