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The Spectacle Blog
Yesterday marked a big win for liberty, productive bipartisanship, and your 800-year old right to trial-by-jury.
Thursday night, the Senate passed an amendment, authored by Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Mike Lee (R-UT), which altered the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to protect citizens from warrant-less arrest and preserve the right to jury trial. The amendment passed 67-29.
Amendment No. 3018 bridged the aisle, knitting political fellowship between “freedom caucus” conservatives and civil-libertarians on the left. For his part, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) gave two impassioned speeches, both before and after passage. Here’s a hint where he stood on the matter:
If you don’t have a right to trial by jury, you do not have due process. You do not have a Constitution. What are you fighting against and for if you throw the Constitution out? If you throw the Sixth Amendment out? It’s in the body of our Constitution. It’s in the Bill of Rights. It’s in every constitution in the United States. For goodness sakes, the trial by jury has been a long-standing and ancient and noble right. For goodness sakes, let’s not scrap it now.
Pretty simple, right? Apparently not. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has kept busy crafting his contra opus that hinges on indefinite detention, without trial, for Americans suspected of ties to terrorist organizations or belligerents –writ large – on American soil.
Parroting Adam Serwer of Mother Jones, it strikes me that Graham’s disgust with “government overreach” is often reserved for Obamacare. Fair enough. But offensive as it may be, it pales in comparison to an act of Congress that allows the Feds to deny due process and jury trial – as Sen. Paul remarked a legal presumption dating back to the Magna Carta.
“But terrorism…!”
I hear you. And I’ll remind you (and Sen. Graham) that American courts have regularly succeeded in prosecuting terrorists, both foreign and domestic. More importantly, controversial invocations of the PATRIOT Act only hint at the breadth of non-terrorist, alleged future-crimes the government is capable of imagining. Erase your right to a trial by jury, add a dash of “indefinite detention” and we’re stuck living in a potential police state.
In a country where you’re more likely to be struck and killed by lightning than by a terrorist (jihadi, or otherwise) I’m regularly astonished by our general apathy toward the protection of civil liberties. Big government doesn’t just make you buy health insurance.
Anyway, big win for us Americans who refuse to take our daily dose of fear from the political dinosaurs still residing in the Senate.
DRed| 11.30.12 @ 3:22PM
I don't know if I'm more shocked by the fact that Congress actually did something or that they did something to advance civil liberties.
Warrior| 11.30.12 @ 4:13PM
This is refreshing, we can talk about an issue without an ideological handicap blinding our opinion. Where I disagree with your post is that it seems ludicrous that we have to pass a bill to support our Constitutional rights. They are not advancing civil liberties, they are only trying to protect what has already been law for the last 230 years or so. Lindsey Graham continues to make me sick. He needs to be given his own party as he is even to the left of Feinstein on this issue.
Stumpy Pepys| 11.30.12 @ 3:36PM
I once worked with a football coach named Erk Russell. He was one of the smartest people I've ever known. Erk's definition of a consultant: "A guy that knows 100 different sex positions but doesn’t know a woman."
Occam's Tool| 11.30.12 @ 5:04PM
Hey, if you are a US Citizen on US soil, you deserve a jury trial. If you are a foreign citizen on US soil, you deserve a trial, either military or civil, depending.
If you are coordinating attacks on US citizens from overseas, and we can't reach you to do a jury trial, and you are hiding in Camel's Rump Dirtbagistan to plot your filthy deeds, The Razor supports cutting your balls off and worrying about legalities later. Or if we catch you holding a gun in a group with your fellow dirtbags in Dirtbagistan attacking American troops in an irregular terrorist group, then you are a Captive of War with, I believe, no rights. (As opposed to a member of a recognized belligerent who has Prisoner of war rights)
Occam's Tool| 11.30.12 @ 5:17PM
Mr. Reid: the reason that you are less likely to be killed by a terrorist in this country than by lightning is due to continued work by agencies to prevent terror attacks. As a guy who had a job offer to work as a colleague with Nidal Hassan, and was saved from that fate ONLY by a different job offer (that job pays $290K a year, by the way---I received another offer to apply recently), I look at terror attacks differently. It is only by an act of G-d that my children still have their dad.
In short, Mr. Smith, from personal experience as well as political differences, I think you are a blithering idiot.
fmm| 12.1.12 @ 12:00AM
Seems to me that with the exception of the phrase about lightning and terrorism, you probably agree with what the author said. The author should have simply started that sentence with "I'm regularly ..... "and it would read correctly. To me, the phrase in question actually seems to mean the opposite of what he intended.
Quartermaster| 12.2.12 @ 8:52AM
I guess your name will be Fascist Tool from here on. Your 5:04 post is OK, but your 5:17 marks you as a blithering idiot or a Fascist. Given the tone of most of your posts, as well as the content, the latter seems far more accurate.
aware| 12.3.12 @ 5:55AM
And a frightened coward willing to cede any amount of liberty for the hollow promise of security. I can almost hear him praying to the State to protect him from all harm. Occam, once you've made the State all powerful for your protection, who will protect you from the Protectors?
John Navratil| 12.3.12 @ 8:51AM
Quartermaster,
Our Constitution has a suspension clause: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Habeus corpus has been suspended several times in the past.
Occam's Tool touches the central point; there is a fundamental conflict between military and civilian rule of law made particularly pressing by stateless actors and terrorism in particular. Gitmo is the most practical evidence of that tension. The very reason they are being detained in Cuba and not here is to prevent access to right of habeus corpus. Of course, every one there is an innocent goat herder caught up in a whirlwind and if only they could get to a federal court, this would all be cleared up.
It's tempting to think through the first step and say that all of these detainees should get their day in court, but the second step suggests that rather than being captured in battle there will be an increased incentive to take no prisoners in conflict with the Geneva accords.
.....
John Navratil| 12.3.12 @ 8:51AM
.....
Where things get murky is in cases like that of Hasan or Padilla - Americans on American soil acting, basically, individually. I, personally, agree with the amendment for several reasons. One doesn't have to make a determination of whether this act was one of war on behalf of another nation or entity, the actions are already covered under the criminal code, the number of these cases can be easily handled, and there is no risk that any cessation of hostilities would result in a call for either's release.
What would you do with say twenty would be hijackers and their handful of American supporters on 10 Sept, 2001? Would we have another twenty blind sheiks and twenty Lynne Stewarts?
Now what would you do with a sizable force of heavily armed foreign and citizen warriors massing at the border?
The presumption in war is that the man battling you is fighting for his country and would return to his civilian life at the end of the war. His detention without right to habeus corpus is to prevent his return to the battlefield for as long as there are hostilities. Wars are not fought in court.
Deacon John Saturus| 11.30.12 @ 6:35PM
In fact, unless you're very selective about what years you include in your count, it's nuts to say you're less likely to be killed by a terrorist than by lightning. Lightning deaths average around 35 per year in the US. Eleven years ago, in 2001, there were around 3000 people murdered by terrorists in the US; and you can add in Major Hasan (13 murdered), Pan Am flight 103 (or don't 189 Americans murdered overseas count?), and so on. And military deaths ought to factor in there somewhere, too.
MyGirlFriday| 12.2.12 @ 4:37PM
Actually, it was a sad day for Republicans if you look at the actual vote count. This should have been an easy vote for Republicans to make yet they were the majority of No votes. Be sure to use the link in the article to see how your senator voted.
Yes: 46/D, 20/R
No: 3/D , 25/R
NV: 2/D, 2/R
aware| 12.3.12 @ 5:49AM
It is NOT a "big win". Too bad "conservatives" are such dimwits where the game of politics is concerned. Here is the heart of the amendment:
"An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, UNLESS AN ACT OF CONGRESS EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZES SUCH DETENTION."
Well, that Act of Congress is the 2012 NDAA, which renders the rest of the Feinstein amendment meaningless. This is a glaring example of why "conservatives"are useless in the struggle for liberty.