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Constitutional questions percolating after Sept.11
Josey1
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Constitutional questions percolating after Sept. 11
By NANCY BENAC
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Select any moment in American history and you can find agitation about the meaning of the Constitution. Now, though, the pondering, probing and hand-wringing have created something of a constitutional clamor.
Secret detentions, wiretaps on lawyers' conversations with clients, military tribunals, monitoring of ordinary Americans: Each day seems to bring new worries about this or that constitutional freedom being infringed on - a concern shared in some cases by judges who have blocked the government's course.
U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, suspected of intending to explode a radioactive dirty bomb, is being held indefinitely in the United States as an "enemy combatant," charged with nothing. Another U.S.-born suspect, captured in Afghanistan, is being held in similar circumstances.
The commotion is not all tied to the government's investigative zeal in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Constitutional questions are brewing on a range of issues, including campaign financing, Internet pornography and the right to bear arms.
Is the Constitution under assault? Is the Bill of Rights under siege? Or is this just the normal give-and-take of a society always redefining its relationship with its government?
"The Constitution is always at risk in times of crisis, and our history has taught us that there is a tendency to overreach on security and then with hindsight to regret what we have done," said Steven Shapiro, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Scholars say that the get-tough mind-set was there before Sept. 11 and that the terror attacks have emboldened the administration to push for what it would not have dared to previously. But even liberal scholars say it is understandable for constitutional questions to arise with the fight against terrorism, the arrival of a new president and the growing role of the Internet.
"There are a series of unresolved issues, but the president and the attorney general have not come close to attacking the Constitution," said Cass Sunstein, a liberal University of Chicago law professor.
Constitutional protections are constantly measured for their fit with new issues and the prevailing philosophy in Washington. A few recent examples:
Last month, the Supreme Court partially upheld a federal law meant to keep Internet pornography from children, but it kept alive a fight over whether the measure was an unconstitutional intrusion on free speech.
New restrictions on campaign contributions and spending, reluctantly signed into law by Bush, are being challenged on free speech grounds by Democrats and Republicans alike.
The Bush administration reversed a decades-old Justice Department policy last month by arguing to the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right, rather than a collective right, to possess firearms http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/world/3480348.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By NANCY BENAC
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Select any moment in American history and you can find agitation about the meaning of the Constitution. Now, though, the pondering, probing and hand-wringing have created something of a constitutional clamor.
Secret detentions, wiretaps on lawyers' conversations with clients, military tribunals, monitoring of ordinary Americans: Each day seems to bring new worries about this or that constitutional freedom being infringed on - a concern shared in some cases by judges who have blocked the government's course.
U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, suspected of intending to explode a radioactive dirty bomb, is being held indefinitely in the United States as an "enemy combatant," charged with nothing. Another U.S.-born suspect, captured in Afghanistan, is being held in similar circumstances.
The commotion is not all tied to the government's investigative zeal in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Constitutional questions are brewing on a range of issues, including campaign financing, Internet pornography and the right to bear arms.
Is the Constitution under assault? Is the Bill of Rights under siege? Or is this just the normal give-and-take of a society always redefining its relationship with its government?
"The Constitution is always at risk in times of crisis, and our history has taught us that there is a tendency to overreach on security and then with hindsight to regret what we have done," said Steven Shapiro, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Scholars say that the get-tough mind-set was there before Sept. 11 and that the terror attacks have emboldened the administration to push for what it would not have dared to previously. But even liberal scholars say it is understandable for constitutional questions to arise with the fight against terrorism, the arrival of a new president and the growing role of the Internet.
"There are a series of unresolved issues, but the president and the attorney general have not come close to attacking the Constitution," said Cass Sunstein, a liberal University of Chicago law professor.
Constitutional protections are constantly measured for their fit with new issues and the prevailing philosophy in Washington. A few recent examples:
Last month, the Supreme Court partially upheld a federal law meant to keep Internet pornography from children, but it kept alive a fight over whether the measure was an unconstitutional intrusion on free speech.
New restrictions on campaign contributions and spending, reluctantly signed into law by Bush, are being challenged on free speech grounds by Democrats and Republicans alike.
The Bush administration reversed a decades-old Justice Department policy last month by arguing to the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right, rather than a collective right, to possess firearms http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/world/3480348.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
By Dennis Godfrey
The Arizona Republic
June 16, 2002
Be careful of what you say in Glendale: Even a mild display of political dissent may bring the police down on you.
At the swearing-in ceremony for the mayor and council members last week, Councilman David Goulet said he wanted to make it harder to qualify initiative measures for the ballot.
Jay McKim, who was watching on the city's cable channel at home, was outraged.
A veteran of political fights for gun rights and other issues, he knew what to do.
He scrawled a message on a piece of poster board, drove to City Hall and stood with the sign at an outdoor plaza where people leaving the ceremony passed by.
"If Goulet has his way, we'll have no say," the sign read.
One passer-by threatened to hit him. A couple of older women told him what he was doing was disgraceful. A few other people smiled or winked.
Then the police arrived.
McKim captured the exchange on audio tape, which he has posted on the Internet.
"Do you have a permit to be out here?" an officer asked.
"I don't need a permit to be out here. I have First Amendment rights," McKim responded.
After some debate about whether McKim was petitioning or picketing, the officer said, "I already told you four times already. Please remove yourself unless you have a permit."
McKim left.
"In retrospect, if I had to do it over again, I would have refused to leave; told them either leave me alone or arrest me," he said.
The day after the incident, Jon Paladini, assistant city attorney, said McKim probably should have been left alone.
The city requires a permit only to identify a person in charge at a protest or demonstration, he said.
"It is not really a permit granting permission, it is a permit getting information," he said.
McKim had the right to make a statement, and requiring him to get a permit when city offices were closed would infringe on those rights, he said.
"Certainly nobody here is an enemy of the First Amendment, or the Second Amendment, either," Paladini said. The latter was a laughing reference to McKim's gun rights advocacy.
We'll talk to the police, Paladini promised.
McKim said he has lots of questions:
"What's the difference in holding a sign . . . or having lettering on my shirt?" he asked.
"Can I go in front of my house and wave this sign? Where is the dividing line?"
As for a permit, McKim said, "As far as political speech at a public political event, I don't need a stinking permit." http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0616freespeech16.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878