Defend our constitution...

Just got this email from a friend and thought Id pass it on to whoever is interested. peace.

 

 

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

well, ill bump this, its a sad statement about the reality of our goverment when aware citizens are considered a risk to the state of our country. does anyone remeber the president saying the war in afghanastan would be a ground war....now villagers are toting un-exploded bombs out of the middle of their houses....

check out the post on will the war change graff and read the article in it, or go to whatreallyhappened.com

 

its very disturbing whats going on. very sad that people would rather not know about it too. ill try to talk about it with my friends and they tell me to shut up./