U.S. struggling to make terrorism charges stick

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=294379
snip...
While full-scale criminal protections are not necessary, surely groups should be afforded a meaningful opportunity to defend themselves before they are shut down. We’ve seen this kind of regime before. In the McCarthy era, the government, working behind closed doors, created lists of “subversive organizations” and then held individuals responsible for any association with such groups, often using secret evidence to support its charges.

Such actions invited abuse, harmed innocents and infringed on the very rights the government claimed to be protecting.

As the Supreme Court said in a 1967 decision belatedly declaring unconstitutional the “guilt by association” tactics of the McCarthy period: “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties — the freedom of association — which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”

The administration seems to have forgotten that lesson; American juries, thankfully, still remember.

— David Cole is a law professor at Georgetown University and co-author of “Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror.”

Thank goodness for the Jury system

[kestrel91316]

1. Wrongful convictions ain't the cakewalk they used to be, eh?