South by Southwest: The best references for making your case

DARK DAYS

Since 2000 American's freedoms have been in jeopardy, specifically those enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the first amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Bloggers write about this issue every day, in one form or another. My focus in this post is on two stances taken by OCP (our current president) that are particularly threatening. First, OCP asserts that the government can spy on its citizens without court approved warrants. Second, OCP asserted that people picked up in the so-called "war on terror" could be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba without their legal due processes being observed.

A few very good references that might be of value to bloggers writing about these risks to our basic freedoms follow the two pertinent Bill of Rights amendments .

The first is the administration's institution of a domestic surveillance program run by NSA, the National Security Agency. To my mind, this program is an unreasonable search, a breach of the right to privacy. It is related to the Fourth Amendment:

Article the sixth [Amendment IV]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Good reliable references about the illegality of this domestic spying:

The Nation - "For His Eyes Only: Bush's Secret Crimes" by Michael Ratner (7/2/06). To quote,
On June 15, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block the New Jersey
Attorney General from demanding that telephone companies answer whether they have broken the law by providing records to the National Security Agency (NSA) .
. . . the administration is using a sweeping doctrine, the State Secrets Privilege, to dismiss cases that could challenge government misconduct. Under this privilege, established by the Supreme Court in 1953, the executive branch can halt cases that might expose government secrets. When the administration invokes state secrets, even judges are not allowed to assess the information and decide if the claim is valid. Instead, the Justice Department simply declares that continuing the case, even in a closed setting, would jeopardize national security. After that, a judge is simply supposed to throw the case out of court. So instead of the court checking the executive and keeping it within its constitutional boundaries, the President becomes the only informed judge of his conduct.
NPR - "NSA Questioned on Scope of Domestic Spying" on Legal Affairs report pages (65 entries from 12/16/05 through 5/11/06). Quoting the introduction to these several pages of valuable links to the many NPR programs about the issue,
More controversy brews around the National Security Agency as a report alleges that the agency is secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls. The disclosure follows Senate hearings earlier this year on the legality of the NSA's domestic eavesdropping program.
AlterNet - "Potential Evidence Surfaces of Bush's Illegal Spying" by Onnesha Roychoudhuri (5/8/06). Quote,
An Oregon attorney may have proof of Bush's domestic spying operation -- which means the illegal program's days may be numbered. . . While the legal ins and outs of the NSA spy program may at times be complex, the essence of what Thomas Nelson is fighting for is simple: upholding the judicial tenet of "innocent until proven guilty" and the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution.
In the coming weeks, the government must file a response to Thomas Nelson's complaint. While the DoJ will inevitably try to push it from the courts, and from public attention, it is only a matter of time before the simplicity of what is at stake takes root. As Nelson explained, "It's a question of whether one man can, as commander in chief, ride roughshod over all the protections in the Constitution. If this is our response to 9/11, we've lost. If this kind of practice can occur because of 9/11, Osama won."
New York Review of Books - "On NSA Spying: A Letter to Congress" by Beth Nolan, Curtis Bradley, David Cole, Geoffrey Stone, Harold Hongju Koh, Kathleen M. Sullivan, Laurence H. Tribe, Martin Lederman, Philip B. Heymann, Righard Epstein, Ronald Dworkin, Walter Dellinger, William S. Sessions, William Van Alstyne (2/9/06)
We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as reported in The New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice Department's December 22, 2005, letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the administration's defense of the program. Although the program's secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law.

The second was the administration's assertion that detainees could be held without charges at Guantanamo Bay in the so-called "war on terror." One of these detainees, Hamdan, with the help of his JAG defense lawyer, sued. The case, thankfully, eventually reached the Supreme Court. It is related to the Sixth Amendment:

Article the eighth [Amendment VI]
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Valuable references about the Hamdan decision:

Hamdanvrumsfeld.com - "June 29, 2006: Victory!"(the site, consisting of all pertinent links, is maintained by Josh Friedman)
Council on Foreign Relations - "The Impact of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld" by Lionel Beehner (6/29/06) To quote from the intro,
Introduction
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration's decision to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay in military war tribunals is illegal. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld the Court ruled that the military commissions do not comply with U.S. military law, the laws of war, or the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees during wartime. The landmark decision marks the second time the country's highest court has ruled to check the power of the executive branch in its execution of the war on terror. In 2004's Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Court ruled the White House does not have a "blank check" to indefinitely hold and deny legal access to detainees who are U.S. citizens. The Hamdan decision is expected to have even more far-reaching consequences for the 450 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, which has emerged as a lightning rod of criticism for human rights advocates.