TERRORISM AND FULL CIVIL LIBERTIES INCOMPATIBLE!
Laws are passed by legislators that reflect the political. social and economic conditions of the times. I doubt if much attention was paid to enact laws on speeding vehicles in the horse and buggy era. Today many legal battles are being fought in the high courts of the United States by civil rights lawyers who are adamant that the freedoms of speech and association proclaimed by law in the latter part of the 20th century be retained.
Ralph D Fertig, a 79 year old civil rights lawyer, says he would like to help a militant Kurdish group in Turkey find peaceful ways to achieve its goals. A provision of the U.S. Patriot Act bans providing” material support” to terrorist organizations. The law takes a comprehensive approach to its ban on aid to terrorist groups, prohibiting not only providing cash, weapons and the like but also four more ambiguous sorts of help—training, personnel, expert advice or assistance and service
David D Cole, a lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents Mr Fertig, told the court that the case concerned speech protected by the First Amendment “ promoting lawful, non violent activities” including “human rights advocacy and peacemaking. A number of victims of the McCarthy-era persecution filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to remember the lessons of history. The latest appeals court decision in Mr Fertig`s case, in 2007, ruled that the bans on training, service and some kinds of expert advice were unconstitutionally vague. But it upheld the bans on personnel and expert advice derived from scientific or technical knowledge
The radical legal theories propping up such civil liberties absolutism might make for interesting academic debate, but when the judiciary embraces these arguments, the ideas become live threats to national security. The law represents “a considered wartime judgment by the political branches of the optimal means to confront the the unique challenges posed by terrorism”. Allowing any sort of contributions to terrorist organizations, as defined by government, simply because the donor intends that they be used for peaceful purpose is the height of naivety. No quarantine can isolate good activities from the evils of terrorism.
The challenges of the McCarthy and the Civil Rights eras cannot be compared to present day terrorism. Playing by the Queensbury rules advanced by activist ideologues will transform the American constitution into a suicide pact. It may well be necessary to strip convicted terrorists of their U.S. citizenship. This would never be contemplated in past times. The security of citizens should be the primary concern of our judges and lawmakers.. Civil Rights libertarians have sought full constitutional rights for foreign terror suspects and relentlessly pursue an outlandish notion of privacy which would block intelligence gathering. This is frightening to say the least.
