Uncivil liberties

Bill O'Reilly really is a major league ass-hole

August 14, 2005

 

 

For the record: Yes, I am a card- carrying member of the ACLU But the more important question is why aren't you, Bob? This is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the questions...

Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate
for president, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, then, folks, you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a couple of minutes ago. Everybody knows American isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship.

President Andrew Shepherd, The American President

That's the speech Michael Dukakis should have given in 1988. How do you let someone get away with attacking an organization that defends liberty? We think such scurrilous political attacks betray a disdain for our fundament liberties embedded in the Bill of Rights. We also think Bill O'Reilly is a schmuck.

MYTH: The ACLU is enabling terrorists and is making the US less safe

No surprise, a New York chapter of the ACLU (search) is suing the police for searching bags in the subway system. We knew this would happen because the ACLU has opposed nearly every anti-terror measure authorities have come up with since 9/11.

Here's how nuts this organization is: The ACLU opposes allowing the feds to have floating wiretaps that would monitor cell phone conversations of suspected terrorists. It opposes American civilians assisting the border patrol — you remember the ACLU went to Arizona to monitor the Minutemen (search). It opposes profiling of suspected terrorists. It opposes military tribunals to try captured terrorists. It opposes coerced interrogations of captured terrorists. It has demanded that more pictures of Americans abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib (search) be released, knowing that would help Al Qaeda (search) recruitment.

 --Bill O’Reilly, “Is the ACLU Bin Laden’s Best Ally?” Fox News, 8/5/05

Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

Levying war is not the only kind of treason.

There is also adhering and giving aid and comfort.

The dictionary defines adhere as "to give support or maintain loyalty."

Interfering with governmental efforts to protect people by random checks or constitutionally permissible profiling may be supporting, aiding and comforting the enemy.

--Michael Gaynor, “Is There a Reason to Prosecute the ACLU for Treason?” Renew America, 8/5/05

REALITY

The ACLU has made news recently for its Campaign to Defend the Constitution, in which part of its tactic has been to sue the City of New York, stating that the newly instituted practice of randomly inspecting the bags of people riding the New York City subway, violates New Yorkers’ civil liberties and is unconstitutional. Now, the ACLU is being branded as treasonous jihadists. The ACLU is also against the use of wiretaps to overhear the mobile phones calls of suspected terrorists. As Bill O’Reilly points out, the ACLU also opposes the use of military tribunals to try suspected terrorists, as well as the use of coerced interrogations to get information from suspected terrorists.

The question is who is right? The answer is probably anybody and everybody. At the heart of the issue of the random subway searches is the privacy that you give up for a supposedly ineffective attempt to catch suspected terrorists. The New York City chapter of the ACLU, which is the group that started the lawsuit, contends that “random searches by definition, even if that's the way they're taking place, are searches based on no suspicion whatsoever….That makes no sense as a security measure, and in our country at least, we have a long tradition that the police do not get to search people about whom they have no suspicion of wrong-doing." The other issue, of course, is that of racial profiling. Which subway riders are most apt to get searched? A white teenaged blond girl or an Arab 20-something male? The efficacy of racial profiling is beyond the scope of this particular debunker, but the concerns are obvious and quite valid. Racial profiling also becomes an issue when one starts to discuss the creating of no-fly lists and “suspected terrorist” lists.

Aside from the New York City searches, is the system under which suspected/captured terrorists have and will be treated by the US military and government. Many very valid objections exist to the use of military tribunals. The Council on Foreign Relations published a very informative piece on this topic. Some of the inherent problems with the tribunal system include the secrecy of the proceedings, the lack of an appeals process, and the allowance of evidence that would not be admissible in normal court proceedings. The tribunals make it more difficult for a suspected terrorist to get any type of fair trial. The other grievous offense the US military has committed is the mere existence of Camps X-Ray and Delta in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We will not go into the litany of problems and civil liberties that are trampled and ignored there. However, if you need a refresher, you can consult a previous Polianna debunker for the details. The point is that we are the world's beacon of democracy and freedom. Being a beacon of democracy and freedom rules out certain things, like secret military tribunals, for example.

At the heart of the issue is the fact that we supposedly still live in the United States--the land of free, home of the brave. The ACLU is simply reminding those officials in power that regardless of the “war on terror” that we are currently conducting and the very real terror threat the US faces, this country is still one built on personal freedoms. The more of these freedoms that we give up and allow our government to infringe upon, the less free and democratic we are. The questions should involve whether these measures are really making us safer, where is the line between being safe and being free?