Liberty or Security? – Part 2

“If America goes to war, government power will grow enormously — probably with the blessing of the people. History tells us that the state will never surrender all of its new authority.”

This statement was penned on October 21, 2001 by J.D. Tuccille and printed in the Arizona Daily Sun in an article entitled “Declaring War a Threat to Our Freedom“.   As Tuccille so eloquently states, this seizure of more power has historically always been the case with our government.

The United States Constitution only allows for one emergency power.   Article 1, Section 9, paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution states, “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”.  The United States government has historically gained unneeded power under the pretense of war or national emergency.   Our government has also conveniently always found some reason to keep some or all of the new found powers indefinitely.

As early as the Civil War, the United States was already going way outside of  the standard set by the United States Constitution by curtailing certain civil liberties.  During the American Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and in doing so, also established Marshall Law.  This action also allowed full power to shut down “hostile” anti-war newspapers and arrest anyone found protesting the war. When the anti-war publications found other resources for their distribution, the U.S. Marshalls were called in to seize any and all copies of these papers.  In one case, a newsboy was arrested for distributing these papers.   Since Lincoln’s suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus had no projected end, the government was able to retain some of its power, even after the cessation of hostilities.

During the First World War, individuals who were given to anti-war sentiments, however mild, were arrested and incarcerated. The government never found it necessary to explain to these individuals why they were in custody.

During World War II, the powers of the United States government reached new heights after the attack on Pearl Harbor when President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus and authorized the internment of Japanese Americans.  Roosevelt also allowed military commanders to to designate “exclusion zones” (read as Marshall Law); the purpose of which was to exclude anyone of Japanese descent from the Pacific Coast.   During this period, approximately 110,000 people of Japanese descent were placed in what was called “War Relocation Camps” (read as concentration camps); incarcerated solely on the basis of their ethnic background.  Surpisingly (or not), 62 percent of those incarcerated were United States Citizens.  Where were the rights to freedom of unreasonable search and seizure under the 4th amendment?    Where were the protections from deprivation of life, liberty or property under the 5th Amendment?  Why were they not informed of the nature and cause of the accusation as required by the 6th Amendment?   What about states being required to provide it’s citizens equal protection under the law as required by the 14th Amendment?  Yeah I know, the 14th is not in the Bill of Rights, but I’m on a tear.

Do you see a pattern here?  Again, once the war was over, the government kept some of its powers and became larger than it had been. Our government seems to be the biggest offender of racial profiling and racial discrimination.  They sell this bigotry to an unwitting public in need of a knee jerk reaction and they do it in the name of nationalism.  How sick?  What gets clouded in this nationalistic frenzy is our rights and that’s the catch.  The citizens are completely supportive of the sanctions because they are angry while oblivious of the fact that when it’s all said and done, what they have done was given the government additional power that can be used against them; and most likely will.

The first War Powers Act gave the president blanket authority to censor communications from the United States to a foreign country by any means.  The second War Powers Act allowed the government broad powers which included seizure of private property which is a violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments.  J.D. Tuccille also wrote in the above mentioned article:

“Much of what presidents did only during war time can be done now under existing powers and the right circumstances”

This was evident on April 24, 1996 when Pub. L. 104-132 was signed into law by then President William J. Clinton.  The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty of 1996 primarily gutted the Writ of Habeas Corpus.  In reality, this portion of the bill had nothing to do with terrorism. It gave the federal government additional power for federal review of state court rulings.   Terrorism has always been tried at the Federal level so while this portion of the bill sounds very good on the surface, it raises some questions; the biggest of which is why does there need to be change in federal review of state decisions in regard to terrorism?  The second interesting portion of  this law allows the Secretary of State to designate a group as terrorists based on information that is given a classification of “Secret”.   This “classified” information would be shown to a judge only if required and the defendant would only get a summary of the information. The government held back information from the suspects based on the information being “classified”. The third, and in my opinion, most open-ended portion of the new law deprived aliens due process if they entered the United States illegally; due process that until the passage of this law, they had always been entitled to.   The U.S. Constitution applies to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.

Not to be outdone, on October 26, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law an Anti-Terrorism Bill called the USA Patriot Act;  “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001″.   Wow!  What a mouthful and so noble sounding.  Need I mention what else I think it’s full of?  This Bill passed through the House of Representatives 356 – 66. The Bill then passed through the Senate 98 – 1.  What happened here?  In one fail swoop, the U.S. government again seized more power and sold it wholesale to the public under the guise of nationalism; it was a necessary sacrifice of some liberties in order to help fight terrorism.  Where’s that going to end?   I seem to remember that one of our founding fathers said a little something about this.

“Those who trade liberty for security have neither” ~ Benjamin Franklin

This new law expands the government’s opportunities to conduct wire taps, broadens the list of terrorism crimes, provides subpoena power to obtain credit card and bank information and loosens the restrictions on sharing of information between law enforcement agencies.

“Let the terrorists be warned. If you overstay your visas by even one day, we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, and we hope that you will, we’ll work to make sure you are put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible” ~ George W. Bush

One could easily read between the lines here and re-state the president’s quote to say, “If we say you’re a terrorist, you are, and you’re going down, no matter what we have to do to put you there”.  The really sad part is that detection and prosecution of terrorists is only the beginning.  Now that the government has this power, don’t think for a second that they are just going to give it up; it’s going to get worse for us.

Talk about a power trip…

J.D. Tuccille is a writer and editor based out of northern Arizona.  He is a self-described “polital junkie with a radical libertarian bent.”  JD Tuccille has been published in The Washington Times, The Arizona Republic and The Arizona Daily Sun.  You can visit his site here.