This is the Time For Lawyers to Speak

If US lawyers are marching in the streets in support of the rule of law in Pakistan, why aren't we marching in support of the rule of law here?

- The Honorable Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York, in a speech before the Federal Bar Council, November 21, 2007

We have all seen over the past couple of months pictures of brave lawyers in Pakistan risking their careers and even their own health and safety to stand up for their nation's constitution. At the same time, we are witnessing at home a similar - if not quite as acute - assault on our own Constitution by the Bush administration. Yet we have not seen a coordinated movement of lawyers in defense of the Constitution in this country.

It seems like this is about to change. The American Freedom Campaign, in conjunction with the National Lawyers Guild, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Alliance for Justice, has launched a campaign called "American Lawyers Defending the Constitution" (ALDC). Conceptualized just last month, the campaign has already brought together scores of law professors and other prominent lawyers, including Governor Cuomo.

Overall, more than 700 lawyers and law students have signed on to the campaign's first project - a sign-on statement to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, calling for hearings to investigate unconstitutional and potentially criminal activities by the Bush administration.

We are pushing to have more than 1,000 lawyers and law students sign the statement before it is released later this week. With that kind of backing, we can open some eyes in Washington and help congressional leaders realize that they are not fighting a partisan battle in Washington; they are fighting for the survival of our Constitution.

If you are a lawyer or a law student, please take a moment to sign the statement - which is included at the end of this post - by clicking on the following link:

http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/lawyers

If you are not a lawyer or law student, please email this post to any friends, colleagues, or family members who are. And encourage them to do the same.

The need for this kind of leadership from lawyers in this country has never been greater. From wiretapping to torture to extraordinary rendition, the Bush administration has ignored and disrespected our Constitution and our laws. It is time for someone to hold them accountable.

In particular, we need members of Congress to appreciate their constitutional duty to defend the nation against an overreaching executive branch. Upholding this duty requires them to move forward in both chambers with contempt citations against Bush administration officials - including chief of staff Josh Bolten, former White House counsel Harriett Miers, and former deputy chief of staff Karl Rove - for defying congressional subpoenas. Urging action on these contempt citations will be an immediate and primary focus of the "American Lawyers" campaign.

When a nation's leader suspends the constitution - as President Musharraf did in Pakistan last month - the need for protest is urgent and obvious. But when a nation's constitution is slowly undermined and its value gradually diminished, it is more difficult to stir the passions of citizens. We are faced with that situation in the U.S. today and it is time for the legal community to rise up in defense of the rule of law.

As Governor Cuomo said in the same speech mentioned at the top of this post, "There is a time to be silent and a time to speak. This is the time for lawyers to speak."

We hope all lawyers and law students will make their voices heard.

* * * * *

The ALDC sign-on statement:

Message to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy from American Lawyers Defending the Constitution

We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law from those who would violate and subvert them, and to hold wrongdoers accountable.

We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws. Evidence exists that it has illegally spied on Americans, tortured and abused men and women in its direct custody, sent others to be tortured by countries like Syria and Egypt, and kept people in prison indefinitely with no chance to challenge the bases of their detention. Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight of the executive branch.

Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution, federal statutes, and international treaties. We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. Should these hearings demonstrate that laws have in fact been broken by this administration, we support all such legal and congressional actions necessary to ensure the survival of our Constitution and the nation we love.

Naomi Wolf is the co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign and the author of the New York Times bestseller, End of America (Chelsea Green).

Comments

[Truthortradition]

In my lifetime, men will always rule supreme over women, children and the earth.
In my lifetime, lobbyist will own the United States of America.
In my lifetime, lobbyist supporting the Republican party will never allow us to throw out the oil and replace it with the sun, water and wind.
In my lifetime, men will always push for torture and then claim to love God.

In my lifetime, Christians will deny that God sent Jesus to us as test to see if we wanted heaven on earth. Unfortunately, we flunked the test because the conservative men on this earth decided to hang him as opposed to embracing change. Plus, they thought torture was a fun diversion, just like they do now.

In my lifetime, women will always earn less than a man in the same job on average. Women will always be raped and gays will be gay, but they won't rape women.
In my lifetime, I will always worry that the next Osama, this time from Iraq, will show up soon in a town near you, not me.

In my lifetime, Republicans will continue their destruction of America by trashing the constitution and building more nukes and more nuclear plants, all in the name of profit and morality.

In my lifetime, I can only hope for the best and plan for the worse. And I still have hope that Hillary WILL WIN.

[LarksNest]

Our country was NOT founded as a democracy.

Nowhere is it ever mentioned in this nation's founding documents - and for good reason.

http://www.devvy.com/pdf/larosa/larosa_democracy_or_republic.pdf
http://www.constitution.org/cs_found.htm

Even though I consider myself a progressive, I'm often astounded that tired, worn-out labels and doctrinaire authoritarian constructs continue to confuse our brightest thought leaders and media pundits on the Left.

For the longest time I was blinded myself to a kind of tyranny-of-words.

Only since about 1912 has this term even been used - through the present time, synonymously and interchangeably - in conjunction with our original constitutional republic.

This country and the vast majority of its citizenry have been systematically looted in the modern era... since the creation of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913... with the stealth passage of the extralegal 16th Amendment... and a short while later, through its equally unlawful enforcement arm, the IRS.

The USA has been in bankruptcy... in voluntary receivership to its central bank creditors... in Europe and America... since 1933.

There are few lawyers alive today who are not thoroughly indoctrinated to so-called communitarian law - a trick of ordinary language which has arisen from the Hegelian dialectic... before morphing into communitarianism... and then somehow finding its insidious way into our law books.

Consequently, Americans are in the grasp of unethical lawyers who've sold us into near-slavery already. The Industrial Revolution, for all the good it's brought us, has bedeviled us with environmental degradation, crony capitalism run amok, and an all-out assault on our sovereignty.

Unfortunately, democratic idealism has played a pivotal role in undermining our sovereignty. The people are made to suffer year-after-year because our once-proud Republic has been given over... to secretive cartels of treasonous megalomaniacs... and spineless government sycophants... addicted to power and easy credit terms... borne by somebody else.

Now who wants or needs more lawyers beside the patient's bed... when one good doctor like Dr. Ron Paul... might be all that it takes to win back our freedoms?

[tz1]

The problem that trial balloons were tried for the majority of the steps cited in the book during the Clinton administration. Broke the rule of law? He only lied about sex, not to save us from terrorists. Hundreds of raw FBI files and an enemies list? Oops, lets ignore it. Pardon your cronies and the big donors.

So after the constitution and rule of law was shredded because it was considered not a violation of something sacrosanct, but a trivial matter for a president to commit perjury, how do you now expect at a time of crisis - and the WTC was destroyed - any restoration of the sense of the sacredness (in the sense that no one will even joke about racism or the N word in polite company if you need an example).

We laughed at it during Clinton's time. We cannot now easily take it seriously when the tyrannies and usurpations - and they differ not in kind, but in magnitude, and not as much as many would like. "He needed it to protect his trysts and you allowed it, I need it to protect you".

Some pointed this out at the time. Especially because the Republicans were in the opposite position - loving the abuse and usurpation because they expected they might be running things next term. And so they focused on the tryst and not on the destruction of the rule of law and the constitution.

Now that things are reversed, will you complain as much (or at all) when it is Hillary or Obama calling Blackwater to put boots on the ground and throats, putting GOPers on the terrorist watch lists, detaining and torturing? As long as you have "the right to choose", and maybe government run health care?

[HeevenSteven]

Naomi, I just watched a youtube video of a talk you gave about your new book.

I would like to know how you maganged to get on the terror watch list; I'm sure you would too. Who's the decider? Is that a life-time appointment? That whole process needs some serious oversight.

[keclxivq]

I think until the lobbyist are stopped completely we will never get out of this mess. Everyone has something on everyone else. That's why nothing can be done in DC. They see all that money and can't resist the temptation. If you get into congress as a fairly poor person for some reason you always come out wealthy. Very strange system. And let's not mention the retirement and health care package those bastards get while leaving us US citizens to fend for ourselves. All three government groups need to be overhauled by the people that live in this country, not the politicians. For some reason I feel the country isn't being run by the people we elected but by the very top wealthiest people in the world. We've fallen down and can't get up.

[Herrington]

I was born in Jim Crow world where the races were separate but (un)equal. Not since that time has anything, not even the Vietnam crises of national faith, so angered, inspired or dispirited the people as has the Bush presidency.

We are as divided now as we were over racial segregation. Now it is economic segregation. Citing facts like that America is now about the middle of the pack in terms of economic opportunity is useless. For every fact there is an equally compelling denial. For every citation of surrendered freedom there is a well poll tested excuse for curtailing that freedom.

We have come far since the day that Martin Luther King was able to beard the lion of white supremacy with speech of high principles. We have come the wrong way, but far, and this country is now a more opaque and evil place. And, the opacity comes from a generation that, instead of seeing the glory of desegregation, were frightened by the power of logic and principle to move even their own devotees. Likewise, the Vietnam experience did not instruct them that war is no trifle, but instead that freedom of speech is the enemy of the oligarchy of the wealthy.

I applaud any action taken to rectify the transgressions of and prosecute the people and presidents responsible for undermining the principles of our government, which to me are acts of treason. But I understand the craven acts of cowardice in the face of eroding liberties by members of congress. I don"t like it, don"t respect it, even loathe it, but understand that they fear the power of the Republican party to control the animus of the electorate and thus seize perpetual control of this country.

The world is near the point where we understand that unbridled self interest, as embodied in the Republican party, is utterly unworthy as a guiding principle of society. What is lacking is a voice with the courage of conviction to call out the better natures of our selves in defense of the things we know to be right.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

methinks Ms. Wolf is a tigress in sheep's clothes.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Pretty topsy turvy when we have to look to PAKISTAN, of all places, to save OUR democracy.

Yep folks, the Pakistanis are fighting harder for THEIR constitution than we are for OURS.

[fourex]

Unfortunately Naomi the loudest lawyer at this time, Alan Dershowitz, promotes aggressive wars, torture, and diminished individual rights.

[robbor]

Hot Dog!!!

[WorkingClass]

This is a good sign. People are are getting used to the idea that the Democrats are quislings, and we are going to have to provide our own leadership. This is just one example how to do that.

[H8FascistCons]

We expect this behavior from the Republican fascists but when are we going to demand the resignation of the fascist enablers, when are we going to demand that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid step down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dgscol]

Ever since Naomi told everyone about the problem she had at Yale, I have grown in respect for her.

She neglects, however, to tell you that Congress is heavily populated already with lawyers. How is ti then, that we have these problems?

Hopefully Cuomo's crusaders will make a difference !
More lawyers, yes.

[Sundialsvc4]

"I'm not a lawyer," and I frankly never aspire to be one, but I'm glad to see a professional organization such as this finally starting to stand-up to what has been happening here for so very, very long. I have long ago despaired that the many attorneys who serve in our Congress have themselves forgotten the oaths that they have taken, and I fear that even now we will see opposition from many of them because they know their own hands are covered with blood.

Nevertheless, if there IS going to be a redemption of this country, in any sense of that word, it is going to have to have to begin with a return to "the rule of law." The law is the only thing that can hope to protect us from our own human nature.

(Five! star) General (and President) Dwight D. Eisenhower saw this coming. He warned us about the unique dangers that accompanied what he dubbed "the military industrial complex." Forty-six years later, the vicious destructive power of that system, with its stupendous amounts of money, stands fully revealed ... and it mocks the law in its arrogance.

If we do not have a law, applying steadfastly from the lowest "civil officer" to the highest, then we do not have a country.

"With liberty AND justice for ALL." It is this principle, above all others, that at one time earned this world's respect and confidence... as well as that of the American people. We must not lose this, our most-precious thing.

[stellanoir]

Never has this country witnessed more violation of laws long established, rolling back the rule of law to pre Magna Carta standards, in a post 9/11 idiotic knee jerk total over reaction, discarding what is good and fair.

Though I love your contributions, I don't feel with a stifled and stacked judiciary, that lawyers alone will remedy this dire situation.

It's going to take all of us.

Consider taking a moment or two at 2:26 pm EST tomorrow and simply saying. . .

"We are creating with spirit, that deceit be eclipsed by truth, that corruption be eclipsed by true justice, "that tyranny be eclipsed by freedom,"***that bigotry be eclipsed by understanding, that bellicosity be eclipsed by diplomacy, that militarism be eclipsed by environmentalism, that terrorism be eclipsed by humanism, that greed be eclipsed by generosity, that righteousness be eclipsed by kindness, that war be eclipsed by peace, and that fear and hatred be eclipsed by universal love.

It's worth a moment or two I figure.

best to you,

kudos to cc

******http://www.coyotenetworknews.com/productcart/pc/radioshow.htm

"nam-myoho-renge-kyo"

[AitchD]

Elizabeth de la Vega is a lawyer and former federal prosecutor. Last year she published and promoted her book "The United States v. George W. Bush et al.", a fact-based grand jury style indictment.

From MotherJones.com:

http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/11/de_la_vega.html

MJ.com: After assembling all this evidence, what laws did you think you could confidently accuse the White House of breaking?

EDV: There were many, but the main one is conspiracy to defraud the United States. That is Title 18, United States Code section 371. It"s a very old statute. The statue itself is really very simple: It says it"s against the law to conspire to defraud the United States. There are several very old cases where they define what that means. The statute is used a lot against defense contractors who present false information to get overpayments on their contracts. But it was also used against some defendants in Watergate and Iran-Contra. It seems kind of like a vague statute, but it"s actually very simple"it means using deceit of any kind in order to impair the function of a government agency. In this case, the deceit was the broad pattern of deception that the administration directed towards the public and Congress.

[Bad actor]

The American people are like drones and need this show of leadership. The Bushiebastards have lied us into a free-fall from democracy into fascism and this would be a good start to recover our balance. Be careful to prevent the group from being swamped by Regent and Liberty.

[BMSstudy]

I get nervous when lawyers are the ones who are asked to be the ones demanding clarity when their profession thrives in the gray. It would be interesting to see a law firms rate of not taking cases becuase they feel that the case is unwinnable on its merits versus their overall win / loss record.

[unemployedprogressive]

The time for the lawyers to take to the streets was during the RayGun administration.

What we the people need is publicly financed elections. Until that is instituted, we will continue to be governed by whores that auction their services off to the highest bidder.

[drricklippin]

Naomi

I want to stand with you but the legal profession,like the medical profession, has morphed into a business.

Sometimes I think ONLY the poets can save us?

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

[bigdaddyvike]

the Dems can't do squat. Let the lawyers give it a whirl. Check out:

http://bushcrimes.net/

[HeevenSteven]

It would be interesting to know how many lawyers sign on, and a breakdown of where an what kind of law they practice.

Good work, and good luck!

[drricklippin]

Naomi-

I want to stand with you on this but law,like medicine, in most cases is not a profession anymore but rather a business.

Sometimes I think ONLY the poets can save us?

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

[Balzac]

Time for a full-court press against Bush.

We cannot be defeated! Grab glory!

[liveandlearn]

absolutely right, naomi! this maladministration has eroded our constitution and continues to do so. let legal professionals speak out and let all people turn to impeachment and investigation as the constitutional remedy for these abuses.