Finally, Action! Ron Paul Introduces Bill to Defend Constitution!
It's not every day that there is something concrete you can do to save democracy in one powerful stroke and make sure your kids don't come of age in an American in which we are no longer protected by the rule of law. I have been writing about the terrifying and precipitous assault on our liberties and our very system of checks and balances; I have crossed the country with this message -- today I am in Boston -- and I have heard across the nation that (as usual) the people are ahead of the leaders and the pundits. Americans of all backgrounds are alarmed and outraged and ready to take action against these vicious assaults on the rule of law. But what I hear again and again is: "What can we do?"
Here is what you can do, and it is big, big news. If we do this together in our millions we are safer; and if we fail to act we miss an historic opening and risk far worse to come.
There are two new organizations that are driving a grassroots push to restore the rule of law: the American Freedom Agenda was started by leaders who are conservative: Bruce Fein, who was a Reagan administration official in the Department of Justice, and others. The American Freedom Campaign was started by progressives. Both groups advance comparable 10 point legislative agendas that would stabilize democracy long enough for us to forestall the worst and regroup for more long-term reparation of the Constitution and the rule of law. Both would, if passed, protect Americans from the scary stories of abuse and recrimination I am hearing every single day -- journalists intimidated, prisoners tortured, innocent citizens spied on by the State in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Both would make it illegal for any administration to commit the kinds of crimes against America and its constitution that we have seen under this one: the innocent lawyer Brandon Mayfield's home broken into, the innocent software engineer Maher Arar kept prisoner by U.S. agents in an interrogation cell in a U.S. airport and prevented from calling his lawyer, and journalists reporting on abuses by the government threatened by the state with prosecution that could keep them in jail for a decade. Urgently it would close the horrific legal possibility for the president to call you or me an "enemy combatant" tomorrow -- JUST BECAUSE HE SAYS SO -- and lock us up in solitary confinement for years.
Passing the legislative agenda of either group would make it clear that American citizens -- in spite of a heretofore craven and compliant Congress -- refuse to stand by silently while a group of criminals systematically violates the core structure of the democracy our Founders put in place for us.
The big news is that this idea can now become a law and a law creates a reality.
On Monday, Rep. Ron Paul, the outsider Republican presidential candidate who has long upheld these values and who was an early voice warning of the grave danger to all of us of these abuses, introduced the AFA's legislative package into Congress. (The mainstream press has an irrational habit of disparaging outsider candidates -- as if corrupt money and machine endorsements equal seriousness of purpose -- even though the Founders hoped that the system they established would lead citizens, ideally those unembedded in the establishment, to offer their service to the nation.) It is the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 [PDF], and you should read it in its entirety: just as accounts of the recent abuses send chills down your spine, this beautifully argued document feels historic and has the ring of great power to correct great injustice.
What does it do? According to an alert put out by the American Freedom campaign, it would accomplish the following:
"The American Freedom Agenda Act would bar the use of evidence obtained through torture; require that federal intelligence gathering is conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); create a mechanism for challenging presidential signing statements; repeal the Military Commissions Act, which, among other things, denies habeas corpus to certain detainees; prohibit kidnapping, detentions, and torture abroad; protect journalists who publish information received from the executive branch; and ensure that secret evidence is not used to designate individuals or organizations with a presence in the U.S. as foreign terrorists."
Ron Paul was the first of all the presidential candidates, red or blue, to step up in this way -- and all credit is due to him for getting there first. May the others of both parties race to follow his lead. These days, as we have seen from how reluctant some candidates have been -- even on the Democratic sign -- even to sign a mere pledge to uphold the Constitution, it takes some courage to stand fast against the assaults of this administration -- and their manipulations of the terms "patriotism" and "terror threat" -- and insist with legislation on the Founders' vision and on restoring democracy.
A groundswell of millions of Americans of all parties rising up to insist on passage of the AFA legislation means that we are awake -- we get it -- and that we assert that an alert citizenry, not a whipped-dog Congress or a violently abusive executive, decides what happens in this nation still. I am not a voter on his side of the ballot -- but I will move heaven and earth to support the passage of this lifesaving agenda. (Interestingly when I run into Paul's supporters -- who are deeply alert to the abuses of democracy -- and I demur by saying I am a Democrat, it is they who rightly assure me that these issues transcend party).
There is no way to overstate how crucial this piece of legislation is. We are at a turning point, and without the restoration of the rule of law the "blueprint" for what I have called a "fascist shift" -- the closing down of democracy -- calls for scarier recriminations against citizens, greater tightening of social controls -- the ever-growing, disturbingly political TSA watch list is, alarmingly, due to go from the airlines' administration to that of the TSA itself -- and more corruptions of the electoral process. Blackwater is a truly terrifying wild card. Without the rule of law we will be powerless as each of these assaults on liberty continue to escalate. With it we can fight back.
This is the answer both to those who say "What we can do?" and to those who claim (actually, sometimes whine) "there is nothing we can do." And if we don't act on this now we will get the democracy we deserve -- which is no democracy at all.
Put aside your partisan ideal world -- sometimes issues simply transcend partisanship -- and if ever there is an issue that is above and separate from party politics, it is the restoration of the democratic system we inherited. There are good people and passionate patriots across the political spectrum.
We at the AFC are putting out a call to pass this set of laws. Pick up the phone -- every day. Email your representative -- every day. Let them hear from millions of Americans a day. Let them hear from twenty. Please play hardball -- the times demand it and nice girls and boys have managed to get this Congress to do literally nothing at all to protect liberty.
Congressmen and women say off the record that they can't support liberty, much as they'd like to, because they are scared of "looking soft on terror" and they want to run out the clock -- a naive and self-serving posture in a time of crisis. Make them more scared of you if they don't. Tell them you will bombard their donors with the message that they have sold out liberty. Tell them you will denounce them as traitors to the Constitution in your local and regional letters to the editor and op-eds. Tell them they are unpatriotic to stand by while liberty is disemboweled. Tell them you will stop at nothing to ensure their future defeat unless they support this and make it the law of the land.
Let's do it. There is no excuse now. The restoration of democracy is up to you -- as the Founders intended it should be.
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Great idea and badly needed - BUT - how can it ever become law? Assuming both houses of Congress even were allowed to vote on it and by some miracle it actually passed; Bush would veto it surely and if overridden (very unlikely), a signing statement would immediately follow. We live in a sad time that's become all the more disgusting and outrageous with every passing day. Nevertheless, it would seem there simply HAS to be a way. Maybe this is the proper start, but one must be cynical. Geezerham
This is how all Noble actions start.
If they dont start, they dont have a chance.
This is a start.
All this from a TX conservative who is considered a "dark Horse" and is in the fight of his political life. Yet he finds time to construct a bill that allows us to follow the road back to freedom.
What a worker he is. All in the name of the constitution.
He WILL restore us if given the chance.
"i rise to urge the congress to think twice before thrusting our nation into a war without merit..one fraught with the danger of escalation into something no American will be pleased with"
RON PAUL......
If people had listened then we wouldn't even be having this discussion and there would be a lot less dead and injured people in the world !!
Mrcontinental - surely you can see above that for we have more serious problems than that.
We can always tweak it later, at least he proposes a new start! We need it direly!
Ask the candidates if they support this act and watch them squirm, especially the gop.
Sounds great - Ron Paul ain't the guys to do it and libertarians, as much as I love most of their principles, are too shrill and dogmatic to bring it about. When they learn what "Rome wasn't built in a day" means and take it to heart then maybe something can happen - but by the very nature of libertarianism that will be when pigs fly.
Worse than that, libertarians want to turn your life over to the whims of profit. They truly believe that the collective conscience of ordinary people should be subservient to the free market. Polluters may pollute, because customers may or may not decide its merits. Drug makers may sell sell snake oil because customers will eventually shun the products. On and on. They are constitutionalists, and I applaude them for it, but let them govern at your peril.
ALL have their ideas such as you....No proof of this.
But even worse, never putting up a better candidate.
Just yell and shout, but never offer a solution.
How typical.
Offer someone with a better voting record, a better foreign policy, that is electable.
Otherwise, keep your trap shut.
This battle to resuscitate our Constitution is the most important political story of this year.
The only problem is, Chris Dodd and Ron Paul are among the only leaders whose voices are raised in this fight. What's the problem with Hillary and Obama? Where is that great freedom fighter Rudy Guiliani on this issue?
This IS the most important battle of the age of terrorism. If we let the Bush Administration's attack on our Constitution stand, we will have lost the war on terror.
I didn't think George Bush was going to be a great president, but I had no idea he would try to destroy our most cherished values.
I thought all those politicians took an oath to uphold the Constitution.
If they don't , they should no only be impeached, but d and convected for lying under oath, like purjury.
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."
Thomas Paine, The Crisis
Published on 23 December 1776
Thank you!
No truer words have ever been written or spoken.
There was a secret CIA report in August , before 9/11, that said there was a plan to use planes to attract buildings, but it was ignored by the White House. There was a secret meeting with oil men before we invaded Iraq.
In case you did not know, there was no connection between the twin towers and Iraq!
The Air force along with NORAD had 21 "fake" war missions and training exercises going on, on 9/11/01. More than double ever recorded at one time on one day. EVER! Most of these training exercises were based on the belief that there were aircraft approaching the US mainland and had targets locked and loaded.
This explains the confusion of Air force pilots.The
They did not know if this was "real time."
I have downloaded NORADS radio transmissions on that day, these were released through the FOIA about 3 months ago.
I listened to all 12 hours.
Everyone was confused.
They did not know if it was real.
No one ever answered their questions.
"Is this real time?"
Until the buildings came down.
This would explain the turn out over the Atlantic Ocean instead of the White house or capitol. The pilots that were directed to intercept, ALL of them flew out over the Atlantic Ocean looking for their target.
They were engaged in training exercises and was told the "enemy" was coming from the East at the beginning of the exercises, Not the west.
Wake Up HuffPoNation, Oligarcy: Some authors such as Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Thomas R. Dye, and Robert Michels, believe that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. This theory is called the "iron law of oligarchy". According to this school of thought, modern democracies should be considered as elected oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an "acceptable" and "respectable" political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites.
thank you for point out this theory to me. I never heard of it before as a formalized theory, but I totally agree with it.
So is it your contention we should give up?
There's another law which is relevant - the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which effectively states that it is easier to destroy order than to create it. This applies to societies.
Perhaps the "iron law" and the 2nd Law interact to create an oscillation. Much like Jefferson envisioned with his recurring revolution.
Regardless, I am not convinced the oligarchical elite can survive the internet. The corruption of power abhors a spotlight - or in this case, millions of them. And the revolution we are witnessing now, if indeed it is one, is not of the sword but of the pen. I wouldn't discount it so easily.
Everybody should actually read the act before getting behind it 100%. It might not actually have any effect with this president.
Setion 3b can be construed to allow the president to create tribunals in a war zone far from any oversight just by calling it "necessary to preserve fresh evidence or to prevent local anarchy."
Section 3c only prohibits indefinite detention of unlawful combatants, and only where there is no proof. These guys haven't had to show real proof up to now, so this won't do anything.
Section 4 prohibits submitting evidence obtained by torture - but the administration will just say "we don't torture." What is torture? The law should be specific as to what is allowed, and not leave a word that can be redefined by ideologues.
Same with Section 5: "in contravention with" is meaningless, since the administration has said they act in accordance with law even when they don't.
And Section 7 doesn't say anything about secret prisons and turning people over to countries that torture.
These things are smokescreens, play-acting. A real law would declare signing statements illegal and define any act by the president to declare or circumvent the law as impeachable and unpardonable by any successor. It would also declare it a felony for government officials to commit acts contrary to law even if they do so under the belief that the president can create law by fiat. Those crimes should likewise be exempt from presidential pardon.
I'm not a Ron Paul Supporter, disagree with most positions
BUT.... I read the bill a few days ago, and I think it's a serious start....
It's not perfect...
I hope the entire legislative branch takes it up and works it....
Kudo's to Ron Paul, the best conservative candidate, IMO
Dr Paul writes more legislation from his desk in congress every year, consistently, then any other member of congress. If he had tweaked this bill himself with ideas of which you speak he would have a target on his head and he knows this...The
Well said TJ.
Signed on yet Arianna?
LOL
Thanks for the article Naomi, I will call my rep and urge them to support the bill.
For those of you disgusted by the GOP like I am but who admire Pauls record and integrity and dedication to the constitution - The BEST thing you can do is help us Paul supporters destroy the Neo-conservative wing from the inside. The GOP is a broad based party and currenly the liberal side of the GOP is one with the most influence. Voting democratic is not going to make that go away, in fact Neo-conservatism is bleeding into the democratic party as well.
We have to crowd them out by replacing their influence with Pauls classic liberalism and restore respect for the constituion to BOTH parties.
His more radical views wont happen, he needs a consensus, He cant, and indeed doesnt want to cut anyones benefits and put them in the street. The social programs that you progressives and democrats want can be provided to you by your respective state and local goverments. Its a win-win.
Naomi, I have enjoyed your speeches - You would be a powerful endorsement for Paul.
Neocon philosophy, and especially its players, started out in the extreme militant wing of the Democratic party. They are primarily of the Trotsky "permanent revolution" variety or as is known now, the unending War on Terror.
There is an old adage of the wolf in sheeps clothes, or the best way to defeat your enemy is to become (infiltrate) your enemy. This is exactly what the Neocons have done.
I am a hard working volunteer for Ron Paul. This not the place to campaign for or against his presidential bid.
What we must realize is that people of good will all want the same things - Freedom, Prosperity, and Peace. We all want to allow poor people to earn a good living. We want to halt the decimation of the American middle class. Some of us have very different ideas of how best to go about that. Those are things we can discuss, and maybe even reach agreement on some day. But what will that avail us if we live in police state?
I urge you to put aside partisan politics, as Naomi Wolf has done, and use all your available time and energy to push for this vital piece of legislation.
http://www
These Dems who are "running out the clock" are, imo, optimistic to a fault. A lot more can happen in the time this madadministration has left to deprive us of our rights and who says, they are going to leave willingly or at all? After watching Jeremy Scahill on Bill Moyers Journal last night, I think we are well and truly screwed.
I have sent emails to all my people in Congress and emails to all my friends and family to send to their people. We need to keep doing this day after day.
Our freedoms are at stake.
PS...there is a word that needs replacing in this sentence from mid-piece, 8 paragraphs down:
::: been -- even on the Democratic sign -- even to :::...you can se that the word "sign" should be replaced with the proper metaphore, "side".
And thanks again for your perceptive observations regarding this vital tack on our nation's relationship to its constitutional foundation. Let's hope we can come up with an agreed-upon and sensible understanding on the individual and the role of the state.
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