Friday, May 12, 2000
Miami Herald
DEROY MURDOCK
Feds held at gunpoint the Bill of Rights, too
Deroy Murdock is a senior fellow with the AtlasEconomic Research
Foundation in Fairfax, Va., and writes from New York City.
By snatching Elian Gonzalez from his great-uncle's Miami home,
the Clinton-Reno regime tip-toed around or trampled at least half
of the Bill of Rights' 10 amendments. Here are the constitutional
guarantees that now lie tattered:
The First Amendment's freedom of the press provision could not
shield an NBC News crew from abuse. Federal agents kicked
cameraman Tony Zumbado in the stomach, yanked an audio cable from
his camera and otherwise disabled his gear. He told NBC: ``[The
feds] put their foot on my back and told me not to move or else
they were going to shoot.''
Soundman Gustavo Moller was struck in the head by another
officer's rifle and ordered to be still or be shot. Moller told
me he suffered a small gash, ``but because it was the forehead,
it was bleeding a lot.''
NBC has asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to
explain its actions and why, as NBC News Vice President Bill
Wheatley told the Associated Press, ``our people weren't able to
do their work because of the actions of agents.''
INS Commissioner Doris Meissner told CBS that overwhelming force
was necessary due to ``the possibility that there might be guns''
in the Gonzalez home. So what? The Second Amendment guarantees
the right ``to keep and bear arms.'' If the mere presence of
firearms on private property justifies such federal behavior,
residents of the 40 percent of American homes with guns should
sleep with their eyes open.
By using an improper search warrant, the Justice Department
violated Fourth Amendment restrictions against ``unreasonable
searches and seizures.'' This document was signed not during
business hours by the federal judge hearing Elian's case, but on
Good Friday at 7:20 p.m. by a magistrate unfamiliar with the
matter. The warrant application claimed that Elian was
``concealed,'' which he wasn't, and that he's ``an illegal
alien,'' which he isn't. The affidavit also failed to mention
Lazaro Gonzalez's alleged weapons that supposedly required a SWAT
team's response.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a Clinton ally, dismisses
this warrant and says the administration, ``acted lawlessly.'' As
he told Fox News: ``It's a dangerous day for all Americans.''
The Sixth Amendment includes the right to ``the assistance of
counsel'' in criminal proceedings. Elian is no crook, but the
spirit of this amendment suggests that he may see the lawyers who
are arguing his asylum case. Elian's attorneys currently cannot
contact him or even observe his condition while surrounded by
U.S. marshals.
Even worse, the only lawyer in touch with Elian is Greg Craig,
his father's counsel, who is working to vacate the Cuban
castaway's asylum application. This is like having Leonid
Brezhnev represent Alexander Solzhenitsyn in court.
The 10th Amendment reserves powers ``to the states respectively,
or to the people'' that are not constitutionally delegated to the
federal government. Nonetheless, Washington intervened in a
child-custody matter routinely handled by state authorities.
The Justice Department alerted then-Miami Police Chief William
O'Brien before ``Operation Reunion'' and reportedly ordered him
not to inform Miami Mayor Joe Carollo. Carollo had grown close to
the Gonzalez family and might have broadcast the news. Still,
federal officials should not have meddled with a local government
by constructing a wall of silence between a police chief and his
popularly elected boss.
YOU COULD BE NEXT
Justice's contempt for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals insults
the separation of powers. The department was not deterred by the
court's refusal to grant an order to transfer Elian from his
great-uncle to his father. When a three-judge federal panel
rejected her plan, Jackboot Janet executed it anyway. Of course,
all this could have been avoided had Reno simply waited until
yesterday's court hearing to make her family-reunification case.
Bill Clinton and Janet Reno harbor neither respect nor reverence
for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. They merely use them
to line the federal Leviathan's cage.
Yet an April 24 Gallup Poll revealed that 60 percent of Americans
applaud the extra-legal abduction of a 6-year-old boy. This
matters because if the president and attorney general skate past
this abuse of power, the next time federal agents storm a private
home, waving a flimsy search warrant, the door they batter down
might be yours.
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FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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