|
ACTION ALERT: "Last night they took my husband away!"
|
Progressive Portal
|
Dec 12, 2001 17:14 PST
|
[------ Original Message Follows ------]
To: Tues911discussPP <Tues911d-@topica.com>
From: "Al Loewy" <bicycl-@hotmail.com>
Subject: ACTION ALERT: "Last night they took my husband away!"
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 21:24:03 +0000
Message-ID: <0.900032817.1674749476-951758591-1002852776@topica.com>
X-Topica-Id: <1002852775.inmta006.18216.2462693>
X-Topica-Loop: 900032817
Return-Path: <bicycl-@hotmail.com>
Received: (qmail 25553 invoked by alias); 12 Oct 2001 02:12:53 -0000
Received: (qmail 25548 invoked by uid 0); 12 Oct 2001 02:12:52 -0000
Received: from albatross.mail.pas.earthlink.net (HELO
albatross.prod.itd.earthlink.net) (207.217.120.120)
by inmta006.topica.com with SMTP; 12 Oct 2001 02:12:52 -0000
Received: from [209.179.250.55]
(pool0295.cvx21-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net [209.179.193.40])
by albatross.prod.itd.earthlink.net (EL-8_9_3_3/8.9.3) with
ESMTP id TAA25378
for <Tues911d-@topica.com>; Thu, 11 Oct 2001 19:12:50
-0700 (PDT)
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Sender: gr-@private.email.address.com (Unverified)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
From: "Wes Boyd, MoveOn.org"
To: "Al Loewy"
Subject: "Last night they took my husband away!"
Date: 12 Dec 2001 19:55:14 -0000
Dear friend of MoveOn,
In Senate hearings last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft
questioned the patriotism of those speaking out for civil liberties:
"Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national
unity and diminish our resolve," he said. "They give ammunition
to America's enemies and pause to America's friends."
We can't let Ashcroft bully American citizens into deserting
our Constitution. Join our "Defend the Constitution" campaign at:
http://www.moveon.org/constitution/
We've all read the stories. The knock in the night. The quick
scuffle, the cries of the children. And then the silence.
Frantic spouses and friends trying to get even the slightest
information about the loved one who has been arrested in the
dead of night. Secret arrests on secret evidence, secret trials,
secret executions.
But that can't happen here, right? We're talking about Nazi Germany
or Stalin's Russia or Pinochet's Chile. But not the USA! We're
protected by the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!
The Attorney General says it isn't so. We're at war, he says and the
Constitution doesn't fully apply in an emergency. Anyhow, we're not
talking about denying the rights of US citizens, just of the 20 million
non-citizen residents of this country.
In the last two months, this administration has:
- Announced that it would permit the monitoring of conversations
between attorneys and their clients if suspected of terrorism;
- Abolished civilian jury trials for non-citizen residents accused
of terrorism;
- Permitted the secret detention of suspects accused of terrorism;
- Asked to use secret evidence to prosecute deportation hearings
without providing that evidence to the defense.
The administration argues that these draconian measures are necessary
to preserve our way of life.
We respectfully disagree. It is when we are fearful that we most need
the protections of our constitution. Our institutions have worked for
us for over 200 years. We are a nation of laws, not of men. Our
freedom depends upon the rule of law. We don't suspend the law because
we're under attack. We support and defend it.
This is not an issue of the left or right. William Safire, the
conservative columnist, has called the Administration's moves "a dismaying
departure from due process" and an assumption of "dictatorial power."
We urge Congress to assert that the Constitution and Bill of Rights must
be fully respected, particularly in this time of crisis. We need your
help and urge you join this petition by going to:
http://www.moveon.org/constitution/
Charge Congress and the President with honoring their oaths of office --
to "defend the Constitution."
Sincerely yours,
- Wes Boyd and Doug Carlston
MoveOn.org
December 12, 2001
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is
eternal vigilance." -John Philpot Curran, 1790
"It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct
war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the
constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity
for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the
gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional
history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that
there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental
constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit
governmental action."
-Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg
in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 1963
"Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions?
Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the
suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that
suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties
might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was
shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases
wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that
operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost
prepared to live under its constant suspension."
-Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788
[------ End Of Original Message -------]
|
|
 |
|
