The American Spectator

Jack in Wi| 12.1.11 @ 6:31PM

This bill is against everything that America was founded on. If a crime is committed let it be brought before a Federal Grand Jury for an indictmet to be issued and a jury trial be held. This bill can and will be used to harass people who want to overthrow the system, even legally. I could name a few people who thought that way, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin. They can call anyone a terrorist or a supporter of a terrorist network. Remember in the Soviet Union so called anti semitism was made a capital crime. The same people that did that have descendents here who would love to do the same thing. McCain has been in their pocket for his whole political career. Levin is also a traitor to American ideals. this oppressive governmnet is morw na dmore resembling Nazi Germany ot the Soviet Union. Security can never replace Liberty. The Constitution is for all, the innocent and the gulity. Without the rule of law we return to the rule of tyrants.

RJ| 12.1.11 @ 7:06PM

Dealing with organized, non-national terrorists is a very difficult issue regarding balancing safeguarding the nation and preserving our individual liberty. I think the starting point is to look at how Abraham Lincoln faced this issue. The national security threat was greater during the Civil War than it was in World Wars I & II, yet Lincoln was more reasonable in preserving freedom than either the Wilson or Roosevelt administrations. We are going to make mistakes along the way, as did the Lincoln administration. The key is to keep liberty in mind and to adjust course when it is clear that the balance has shifted too far in terms of national security over individual liberty.

Jack in Wi| 12.1.11 @ 7:28PM

Lincoln imprisoned thousands of people who disagreed with him and his policies, with out any due process. He was a dictator and tyrant. If there had been more oppostion allowed perhaps their could have been a better outcome of the war and not 150 years of bitterness. Wilson also violated the Constitution in a massive way, and imprisoned many. FDR was another guy who used the FBI like storm troopers against his opposition. There has been no declaration of war and we have had our civil liberties under assault for 10 years. Now Mr. Goldstein wants this country to be a place as bad as Israel or Apartheid South Africa where people are or were called terrorists at the drop of a hat and thrown into dungeons, for years without a trial.

RJ| 12.1.11 @ 10:48PM

Hi Jack,

I agree with you that President Lincoln acted beyond his Constitutional authority, but I wouldn't call him a dictator or a tyrant. Washington, D.C. was virtually surrounded by rebels and the fate of the nation was at stake. I think he did as best as was humanly possible under extraordinarily difficult circumstances and was much more responsible with power than other presidents.

I offer the following summary of James McPherson's "Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution" - Early during the Civil War, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in portions of Maryland wracked by guerrilla activities and mob attacks on Union forces. Union soldiers arrested numerous pro-southern Marylanders, including the mayor and police chief of Baltimore and 31 members of the state legislature. In a few cases the arrestees were held without trial for more than a year. Lincoln eventually ordered suspension of habeas corpus in the United States in cases of “disloyal persons [who] are not adequately restrained by the ordinary process of law from … giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection.” By the time the war was over, Union soldiers arrested and detained at least 15,000 civilians without charges while military courts tried and convicted hundreds of others. Most of the arrests took place in the border slave states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri where loyalties were divided and active fighting was going or in portions of Confederate states occupied by conquering Union forces. Most of those arrested in activities with military significance, such as guerilla attacks on Union soldiers, burning of bridges, blowing up of supply dumps, espionage and the like. (57) However, there were some arrests based on public speeches against the war, such as Ambrose Burnside’s arrest of arrest and military conviction of former Congressman Clement Vallandigham. Also, Indiana resident Lambdin Milligan was convicted of treason in 1864 for aiding Confederate agents to foment an uprising. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, after the war, on the grounds that civilians cannot be tried in military courts in a region where regularly established civilian courts are functioning. (58) Chief Justice Taney said that the Constitution only allows Congress to suspend habeas corpus, not the President because it is written in Article 1. Many constitutional scholars have supported Lincoln’s position since it is an emergency power, which only the executive could act quickly enough in a crisis, especially if Congress was not in session. Lincoln stated in his July 4, 1861 message to Congress, “Are all the laws but one [habeas corpus] to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?” (59-60) Regarding Vallandigham’s arrest (Lincoln would not have taken this action, but thought it necessary to support Burnside, according the McPherson’s Battle Cry for Freedom), Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? I think that such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy.” (60)

Regarding the performance of other presidents, acting in less dire circumstances, I offer the following summary of James Simon's "Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney" - John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were aimed at intimidating and silencing the administration’s critics. The Sedition Act made it a crime to say or print anything “false, scandalous and malicious about the federal government. (281) ... During World War One, President Woodrow Wilson’s Justice Department aggressively prosecuted outspoken opponents of U.S. involvement in the war under the Espionage Act of 1917, which made it a crime to “willfully cause or attempt to cause … disloyalty” or “willfully obstruct” the military draft. The Supreme Court upheld convictions, including Socialist Party’s frequent presidential nomination, Eugene Debs for a speech made to the Ohio Socialist Party convention. ... During World War Two, the Supreme Court (Hugo Black opinion) upheld President Roosevelt’s order that took Japanese-American citizens from their homes and held them in relocation camps. (283)

C Bowen| 12.1.11 @ 7:20PM

Mr. Antle;

Will this bill apply to John Bolton, Bill Richardson, Rudy Guiliani, Mitchell Reiss amongst others who take money from and actively promote a Marxist terrorist group in the MEK?

Because then I might be willing to listen to arguments in favor.

Jack in Wi| 12.1.11 @ 7:36PM

I apologize to Mr Goldstein. I was thinking of Abraham Lincoln and his post about the movie. Mr Goldstein is a supporter of Israel. But he hasn't written on this subject of the detainment here that I know of. I guess I hate Lincoln and what he did, so bad, that I saw red and became a little incoherent myself.

Paul Bot| 12.1.11 @ 8:58PM

Don't worry, we are used to it.

Dai Alanye| 12.2.11 @ 1:11PM

Putting aside the usual mindless rants of the paulbots, mild as McCain-Levin might be, it is sponsored by two very questionable characters.
While we need always be aware of Justice Jackson's reminder, "The Constitution is not a mutual suicide pact," (or words to that effect) the only justification for limitations on Constitutional protections is desperate danger. With regard to Islamist terrorism we haven't yet reached that stage of desperation.