US democracy, R.I.P.
This email may be forwarded or reproduced freely,
provided it is done so in its entirety.
---Paul Lehto
BRIEF INTRO: THE RELEVANCE OF THIS POST TO THIS LIST:
Every once in the 217 year history of our US Constitution an event comes
along that is relevant to every listserv in the United States of America
-- because it concerns the most basic possible right under the US Constitution
that provides the framework for our entire country and our elections, and
therefore every listserv in the country. As described further below, that
overarching framework of laws designed to ensure the continuation of freedom
radically changed October 17, 2006, which therefore greatly affects this
listserv and operates as a once in 217 year exception to its relevance
rules. Put another way, this list owes Freedom a funeral since freedom
is now dead. So here it is:
-------------------------
AMERICA IS NO LONGER FREE
by Paul Lehto, Attorney at Law
Habeas corpus -- it's your most fundamental legal right,
your right to go to a court and get an order requiring the government to
prove that it is holding you in prison with proper legal authority to do
so. Without that right, one necessarily lives in a dictatorship. President
Bush today on October 17, 2006 signed a bill repealing that law, meaning
that the administration need not comply or show compliance with law any
more with regard to who goes to prison or Gitmo.
While it supposedly applies just to terrorism cases,
that doesn't prevent it from ending the rule of law in the United States
for our newly all-powerful Executive. This is true not just because terrorism
is construed so broadly in the prohibition of "material support"
for terrorism (which by the way has already been held to include a lawyer's
press release on behalf of a terrorist client) but because the administration
NEED NOT PROVE IT'S REALLY TERRORISM because they don't need to answer
to any court in the land at any time.
Even "Justice" Scalia wrote in the Hamdan case that "the
very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers
has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive."
That very core of liberty died on October 17, 2006 with the signing of
the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and its elimination of habeas corpus.
Oh yeah, it also legalized torture wholesale. While misleadingly purporting
to prohibit a few forms, upon full analysis it prohibits none. But who's
going to know since your relatives won't be able to find out where you
are anyway, right? Habeas corpus ("produce the body") was not
supposed to mean habeas corpses. Habeas corpus started as soon as human
beings had the yearning to breathe free of the abuses of unchecked power
of a king, aristocrat or lord, starting around the year 1215. We now have
a pre-1215 mentality, all because of fear of some primitive and violent
guys living in caves somewhere. Many of us are not intimidated.
Yet the same day as the signing of this Military Commissions Act of
2006, a lawyer following her ethical duty to represent her client and ill
with breast cancer was sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison for the
simple act of issuing a press release on behalf of a terrorist client in
prison, which was judged "materially aiding" terrorism. (Such
press releases for unpopular clients are hardly ever printed verbatim in
any respect by newspapers, yet the allegation was that there could be a
coded communication in the press release and there was a no-communication
order in effect.) While this terrorist is a genuine terrorist, there's
nothing in the law that distinguishes between representing serious terrorists
and representing "innocent terrorists" (if there is such a thing)
or minor ones, but in any case, remember, they don't need to comply with
habeas and show that you are guilty anyway! At most, they just think to
themselves "this guy's a terrorist" and you disappear into the
torture chamber with no right to be heard from, even indirectly through
your lawyer, which you have no enforceable right to anyway.
Even public opinion will likely not catch up with this because people
will just disappear and who knows, maybe the missing person just went off
on a lark or a fugue to start a new life, right?
Consequently, on October 17, 2006 freedom died in the United States
of America . We now live in a dictatorship. We live in a dictatorship
even if you think George W. Bush will be a wise and beneficent king or
dictator. It is defined as the possession of absolute power as opposed
to checks and balances.
In the Keith Olbermann commentary at the first youtube link below;
I agree with Professor Turley (Constitutional Law) that people "really
have no idea how significant this is." Turley says we now have an
"absolute ruler" which is really just another way of saying dictatorship.
He's not kidding. I'm not kidding.
I'll be releasing an extended (and devastating, early readers say)
critical piece on this within 48 hours, but in the meantime and after that
please consider the importance of this issue is at a WHOLE OTHER LEVEL.
It's not an "issue" that we form polite activist groups to respond
to.
The Executive Branch now has full discretion to imprison anybody they
want to without charge or trial or bail and there will be nothing anybody
can do except beg the King. I.e. there's no rule of law applicable to the
administration. EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN LAW was essentially repealed, because
the administration need not prove to anybody that it has complied with
the law by indefinitely detaining you, your relative or anyone else.
Keith Olbermann's commentary, with Professor Jonathan Turley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igycXBseoAg
The only thing I don't agree with Turley on is this: There is not a
giant Yawn, there are a lot of people shocked, many crying, millions disturbed,
millions more waking up. It's always hard to be among the first to know
and to wait for the rest of the country to catch up, but somebody has to
be in that position. Let's not, because we are among the first millions
to wake up, send out the message that getting the American dream back is
relatively hopeless based on the Yawn seemingly heard today. After all,
there is no media echo besides Olbermann to get the word out and reinforce
it. But there will be. I also disagree with Turley's approach, even as
he makes strongly worded comments that are nevertheless scholarly and restrained
in tone and volume, because it's inappropriate and (if you believe in Constitutional
rights) not unlike talking in a similar dispassionate tone when a masked
man walks into your local elementary school with automatic weapons drawn.
For a more appropriate tone, here's another two minute video below
that was filmed right before this bill was signed but it nevertheless applies
to this situation, and gives advice on what to do when "they come
for your freedom." Paul Revere said "the Redcoats are coming".
Today, "the Redcoats already came."
These situation of legalizing torture and eliminating habeas corpus
is WAY WAY WAY "out there" in terms of extreme. Bush and his
administration are incredibly isolated now, seeking to legalize the very
things we prosecuted ourselves in WWII like waterboarding. If I hear anyone
even IMPLY that we live in a free country, the correction will be swift.
WE DO NOT LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY ANY MORE. PERIOD.
The hopeful note is this: We can recognize how incredibly isolated
both in the world and in our own country this Administration is, and we
can turn away, and withdraw any remaining support and respect. But, if
we react just in fear, whether fear of Gitmo or fear of torture or fear
of terrorists, the dark curtain of dictatorship will descend further and
their power will consolidate. In the end, Americans will not be denied
freedom in a struggle for freedom on their own soil.
"Freedom is Under Attack" -- Rollins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6waWS0Y3Ubc
(f-bomb warning, but appropriate IMHO in this context)
Paul Lehto
Attorney at Law
lehtolawyer@gmail.com
Permission granted to distribute in full with attribution.