Fighting for Freedom

I just joined the American Civil Liberties Union. Here's why. Republicans sell fear, and the Democrats are paralyzed by it. And so, as the mid-term election draws near, we have a detainee bill that strips away core American freedoms in the name of unlimited executive power - err, I mean, national security. A couple highlights:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

I am outraged, and saddened. We've long been heading down a path of eroding what makes our country great, in exchange for unearned trust in our failed executive branch. Now we've crossed into a realm where due process of law has been declared inadequate in the persecution of the enemies we've created. Due process is even withheld from American citizens, if the executive so chooses. No president deserves that level of power, least of all the current one.

We recently had dinner with Lori's Republican parents, both of whom used to work for the Pentagon. They said we should just throw everyone out of Congress and start from scratch. Not a bad idea. I think Thomas Jefferson might agree.