Civil Liberties
1. How does the Military Commissions Act of 2006, recently passed by Congress, impact the right of American citizens to petition for a writ of Habeas Corpus? In a word (two actually), it doesn’t. Here is the first line of the act after the definitions are finished…(a) Purpose- This chapter establishes procedures governing the use…
An attorney by the name of Adam J. White had an article in yesterday’s Weekly Standard where he explained how the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress last week affected the right to petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Here’s the outline of his explanation…The Constitution establishes the right of American citizens to petition…
The Associated Press is reporting that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted a lower court stay on the National Security Agency’s “warrantless wiretapping program”, formally called the Terrorist Surveillance Program. This circuit court ruling allows the program to operate while the appeal of the original stay is being considered… The Bush administration can…
If one presses, as in the comments to a post by Don Hawthorne, it is possible to get a straightforward answer. Writes Bobby Oliveira of the Constitutional requirement that religion be banned from the public sphere: Since everyone will not choose to participate, based on belief systems, you cannot allow some belief system to obtain…
Mark Steyn makes the argument for warrantless wiretapping when one-half of the call is outside of the US as well as can be done in two sentences…If Judge Taylor’s ruling stands, if the U.S. government intercepts a call from Islamabad to London about a plot to blow up Big Ben, it can alert the Brits.…
Here’s the New York Times on yesterday’s NSA wiretap hearing…In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president’s constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a…
D. W. MacKenzie wrote in the October 2002 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, the monthly publication of the Foundation for Economic Education, about the coercive role of government: I am government… Coercion is both my vocation and my avocation; it is in my very nature to compel others to do that which they…
What a delight to read Andrew’s posting about freedom of speech bursting forth in the town of Coventry! And what concern all of us should have as we read his posting about potential government regulations which seek to squash the fundamental American right to speak our minds. Here are some earlier postings on this important…
This leaves me with nothing to say, except to hope that it’s a fluke, not an indication of trends: STATE SEN. Marian Walsh (D.-Dedham) has filed legislation requiring churches in Massachusetts to submit annual reports to the state detailing their collections, expenditures, funds on hand, investments, real-estate holdings, etc. The proposed law would apply to…
We are at war. We are a land of liberty. We have a federal government whose appetite for meddling seems to be growing. Two recent news articles have raised questions about the extension of the Patriot Act: Patriot Act Push Angers Some on Right: A Senate panel vote riles conservatives concerned about the reach of…
