Suppression and Liberty

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Suppression and Liberty

By Ron Fullwood (me)

"President Wilson in World War I authorized the military to intercept each and every cable, telephone and telegraph communication going into or out of the United States." - Attorney General Gonzales before the Judiciary committee 2/6/06


02/07/06 (ICH) -- -- It's in keeping with the regressive character of this administration that they would have the gall to throw Wilson's repudiated actions against Americans during WWI at the wall of opposition to their own warrantless spying on Americans, hoping the revisionism would stick.

President Woodrow Wilson urged legislative action against those who had "sought to bring the authority and 'good name' of the Government into contempt." He worried in his declaration of war, about "spies and criminal intrigues everywhere afoot" which had filled "our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government."

During his presidency more than 2,000 American citizens were jailed for protest, advocacy, and dissent, with the support of a compliant Supreme Court.

The Wilson-era assaults on civil liberties; Schenck v. U.S.; Frohwerk v. U.S.; Debs v. U.S, Abrams v. U.S., were ratified by Supreme Court decisions which asserted that free speech in wartime was a hindrance to the efforts of peace.


Gonzales argued in the Judiciary hearing that, "Presidents throughout our history have authorized the warrantless surveillance of the enemy during wartime. And they have done so in ways far more sweeping than the narrowly targeted terrorist surveillance program authorized by President Bush."

That's actually the reason for the creation of the FISA court, as a check on Executive authority. The FISA was sponsored in the ‘60's by Sen. Edward Kennedy and others in an attempt to reign in warrantless surveillance by the government. It was a remedy for abuses. Gonzales wants us to believe that the danger to America now is so great that we should go back to the paranoia and repression of earlier dark periods of our nation's history and strike out at our citizens with the full weight of government, with the hope of felling a handful of potential assailants.

So far, there have been no arrests of any terrorist as a result of the special powers Bush granted himself after 9-11. Not one terrorist has been arrested in the U.S. as a result of the warrantless spying on Americans authorized by this administration. Not that warrants would have necessarily made their actions acceptable . . .

full article: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11814.htm

[Klukie]

1. suppression and liberty

Good point. There is nothing like justification of one illegal act with another. After all they are only breaking the law a little bit compared to past offenders.

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2. and don't you believe it either. they are far worse than their examples

they'll go down in history as enemies of democracy, enemies of the people.

welcome to DU . . . thanks for making this your first post!

[Klukie]

5. Thanks for the welcome.

I'm not quite sure how everything works here yet so forgive me for my inevitable mistakes. I see that I can't start a thread until I have so many posts and I'm fine with that, but how do I get an answer to a bill of rights question without disrupting someone elses thread?

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6. there's disrupting . . .

and there's disrupting . . .

Jump right in. You should do fine.

[newyawker99]

4. Hi Klukie!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

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3. The Founding High-Tech Fathers, a Story by Alberto Gonzales

It's wonderful that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a lively imagination, and more wonderful still that he shared it with United States Senators.

Atty. Gen. Gonzales: "... President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale. ''

"To: President A. Lincoln

"Mr. President: Enclosed herein are yesterday's logs of intercepts of Blackberry e-mail exchanges between Gen. Lee and Capt. Rhett Butler. Yr obdt servant ... ''

You at home can play along, too. Let's see ... what would have happened if Romeo and Juliet had had cell phones? What if Alexander the Great had had Amoxicillin? What if Abraham Zapruder had had a JVC GY-HD100U High Definition 3-CCD Mini DV Professional Digital Video Camcorder with 16x Pro HD Fujinon lens and 24-Frame Progressive Recording?

In the Supreme Court's first wiretapping case, Olmstead v. United States, in 1928, it was Justice Louis Brandeis who wrote in his dissent, "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal ... ''

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-morrison/the-founding-hightech-fa_b_15256.html

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7. kick