-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2001-12-
14/cols_ventura.html
}}}>Begin
HOME: VOL.21 NO.15: COLUMNS: LETTERS AT 3AM
Appear to Be Dangerous
Letters at 3AM
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
December 14, 2001:
illustration by Jason Stout
Ancient history: The year is 111 CE. Pliny the Younger is the Emperor
Trajan's legate to Bithynia-Pontus, a city on the Black Sea. Pliny's
discovered lots of Christians there. He's learned of them, he writes,
when "a placard was put up, without any signature, accusing a large
number of persons by name." He has interrogated many, declared some
innocent, tortured others, and executed still others, but the number
yet to be dealt with is so significant that he writes Rome for
instructions. Emperor Trajan has nothing against persecuting
Christians, but his reply to Pliny includes the following caution
about anonymous placards: "Informations without the accuser's name
subscribed must not be admitted in evidence against anyone, as it is
introducing a very dangerous precedent, and is by no means agreeable
to the spirit of the age."
Tell that to George W. Bush. He's claiming more judicial power than
even a Roman emperor.
The Bush White House is mounting the most sustained and successful
attack on the Constitution in America's history. Review it in
sequence:
October 25. A Senate vote of 99-1, and a House vote of 357-66, passed
Bush's USA-PATRIOT Act (acronym for "the United and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Interrupt and
Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001"). Among its provisions: Government
agents may enter your home without your knowledge and without a
warrant, if federal attorneys claim the search has a "significant
purpose" relating to an ongoing investigation. So "probable cause,"
which must be specific, has been replaced by "significant purpose,"
which could mean anything. The law allows the government to monitor
telephone and Internet communications with no specific warrants, and
to listen in on attorney-client conversations in prison. Its
definition of "terrorism" should terrify you: "Acts dangerous to
human life that are a violation of the criminal laws ... [or that]
appear intended to intimidate or coerce the civilian population, to
influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or
to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction,
assassination, or kidnapping." Only the last clause specifies violent
acts; the definition mainly concentrates on dangerous acts that
"appear intended to intimidate or coerce." Defined broadly, that
could include peaceful protest and civil disobedience -- such acts
are certainly intended to "intimidate" the government; the law could
even indict articles like this one, if this article is accused of
intending to inspire peaceful protest or civil disobedience.
Why say "dangerous" rather than "violent" acts? Because everyone
knows what "violent" means, but this law lets the government define
"dangerous." Dangerous to whom? (J. Edgar Hoover thought Martin
Luther King dangerous and dogged him mercilessly.) Why the vague word
"appear"? Who gets to define the appearance of an act of protest? The
USA-PATRIOT Act gives the government the sole right to define it,
after the fact -- for a protest must first occur in order to appear
to be anything. You won't know you've appeared to be dangerous until
after you've done something. This law is meant to be defined as it
goes along. That's dangerous.
November 1. President Bush signed an executive order giving an
incumbent president veto power over the release of documents from
past administrations. According to The Week, "Historians and
journalists will be forced to demonstrate a 'specific need' for
documents to be released to the public." In practice this means that
the American presidency now has the power to operate under a cloak of
complete secrecy.
An aside: Senate hearings during the first week of November revealed
that a month after the first anthrax case the FBI had yet to locate
all the American labs that legally handle anthrax, much less any
illicit anthrax producers. Could Bush's constitutional extremism be a
cover for incompetence? Or is it simply to avoid admitting that,
after the most intensive search in our history, he simply hasn't
found any terrorists in America? He clearly lacks hard evidence.
Which might explain:
November 13. President Bush signed an executive order sanctioning
secret military tribunals, answerable only to the president himself,
in which defendants cannot select their own lawyers, have no right of
appeal, and may not even be allowed to see the evidence against them.
(Emperor Trajan would be shocked.)
Also November 13. Ashcroft orders police departments across the
country to pick up and question 5,000 men from Middle Eastern
countries. According to Ashcroft's guidelines, these people will be
asked "for a list of phone numbers of friends and relatives." Police
chiefs in Portland, Eugene, and Corvalis, Oregon, Seattle, Ann Arbor,
Detroit, Tucson, Baltimore, and Richardson (a Dallas suburb), among
others - - either have refused the order outright or watered it down
considerably. Again in this crisis, some American police are behaving
heroically.
November 15. Attorney General Ashcroft said his arrests are meant to
prevent other attacks. Which means: People on American soil are being
held indefinitely, without specific charges and with no evidence, for
what might happen. Well, we want to be protected, don't we? But
(jumping a little ahead here) on December 1, The New York Times
reported that "some at the FBI have been openly skeptical about
claims that some of the 1,200 people arrested were Al Qaeda members
... 'It's just not the case,' an official said. 'We have 10 or 12
people we think are Al Qaeda people, and that's it. And for some of
them, it's based only on conjecture and suspicion.'"
Which again begs the question: Are these extremist measures a cover
to avoid the political cost of admitting that the most intensive
investigation in American history has turned up next to nothing?
November 14. Vice-President Cheney emerged from his secure location
long enough to assure the media that terrorist suspects would receive
fair trials from military tribunals. He didn't sound convincing to
our allies, however:
November 23. Spain informed the United States that it will not
extradite the eight men it has charged with complicity in the
September 11 attacks unless Bush agrees that they'll be tried by a
civilian court under our Constitutional guarantees. The next day The
New York Times reported that "a senior European Union official who
asked not to be identified said he doubted any of the 15 [EU] nations
-- all of which have renounced the death penalty and signed the
European Convention on Human Rights -- would agree to extradition
that involved the possibility of a military trial." Five days later
Spain's prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, met with Bush at the White
House. Obviously under intense pressure to change Spain's position,
in his Rose Garden news conference (with Bush at his side) he said
only: "If and when the United States requests that extradition, we
will study the issue." I.e., he's standing fast, politely but firmly.
Our Constitutional rights are being defended more vigorously by
Europeans than by Americans.
November 26. Attorney General Ashcroft explained why he won't reveal
the identities of 1,000 or so men being held indefinitely without
charges: "It would be a violation of the privacy rights of
individuals for me to create some kind of list of all of them that
are being held." Let's get this straight. ... He's holding 1,000
people unconstitutionally, without charge and without prospect of
release, but he won't tell us their names so that he can protect
their rights?
November 27. Senator Arlen Specter (Penn.-Rep.): "The administration
has yet to show where the president gets the authority for this
extraordinary executive order [regarding military tribunals]." During
the Clarence Thomas hearings, Specter was one of the most vicious
questioners of Anita Hill. He's no angel. If he's worried, you should
be worried.
November 28, The New York Times: "The Justice Department has quietly
expanded its power to detain foreigners, letting the government keep
a foreigner behind bars even after a federal immigration judge has
ordered him to be released for lack of evidence." Read that twice.
Ashcroft usurped the power to reverse a federal judge who has already
determined a lack of evidence. Again and again the Bush
administration is demonstrating utter contempt for the requirement of
evidence in a criminal proceeding.
November 30. Anthony Lewis in The New York Times: "The Bush
[tribunal] order could easily be extended to citizens, under the
administration's legal theory. Since the Sixth Amendment makes no
distinction between citizens and aliens, the claim of war exigency
could sweep its protections aside for anyone in this country who
might fit the vague criterion of aiding terrorism."
There's more, but I'm out of space. Listen to Rep. John D. Dingell (D-
Michigan): "I hear a lot of [House] members saying they're concerned,
but not many willing to say it publicly."
They're not willing to say it publicly because they're not hearing
from enough of us. Do you want to save your Constitution? Make
yourself heard.
Recently in Letters at 3AM:
November 30, 2001
Our president and attorney general have turned the protection of our
civil liberties into the new national crisis. [11-30-01]
November 16, 2001
Defense against one's enemies presents a conflict for individuals who
identify themselves as members of a Christian society instructed to
turn the other cheek. [11- 16-01]
November 2, 2001
Sometime in the wee hours of September 12, George W. Bush realized
that he is the President of United States and rose from his previous
ineffectuality to meet the occasion. [11- 02-01]
More by Michael Ventura:
Letters at 3AM
Mary's Monsters [10- 19-01]
Letters at 3AM, vol 21 / #5
9/11: America Ungoverned [10- 05-01]
Letters at 3AM
The 21st Century Announces Itself [09- 21-01]
More...
screens | music | news | cuisines | arts | books | features | columns
CALENDAR | GUIDES | CLASSIFIEDS | PERSONALS | ARCHIVES
Copyright � 2001 Austin Chronicle Corp. All rights reserved.
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
