<div>Keely et. al.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>All sarcasm aside, yours or mine, my main point was that since 9/11, our government has increasingly hollowed out the "moral sense," as you phrased it, of the US Constitution. The so called civil rights granted to immigrants, whether legal immigrants or not, or US citizens, by law prior to 9/11, are now, by laws passed post 9/11, undermined. This view is supported by some of the best legal scholars in the US. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Detainees and prisoners can legally, as I outlined in the post you responded to listing the legislation and executive orders passed post 9/11 that have impacted this issue, be denied the rights that are under discussion in this thread. In short, the "rights" don't exist absolutely, at least in the context of the newly written law. A good reason to invoke "God" as a foundation for absolute ethical standards, if only humans agreed broadly on what "God" is, or what "God's" ethical standards are.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Debating the rights of immigrants in this context might deflect attention away from the fact that our rights in general as US citizens have been weakened. The foundations of what the US Constitution ostensibly grants as civil rights is at issue. The very fact our government has in recent years debated the efficacy of torture, or the justifications to suspend habeas corpus, demonstrates this. US Attorney General Gonzales called the Geneva Conventions "quaint."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The discussion in this thread has focused in part on whether children born in the US to "illegal" immigrants are granted US citizenship automatically. In fact, US citizens can be stripped of their legal rights as citizens, given changes to law since 9/11. </div>
<div>Consider Japanese Americans, placed in camps during WWII, as a warning for what could happen. We are now in an endless "war on terror," used as a justification to weaken civil rights. Given that terrorism in one form or another will likely exist for generations, our civil rights are thus in jeapordy of being suspended for generations.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The rights granted by a government (and we can debate where rights reside, or from what source they are granted, in theory, but when a gun is put to your head, you are beaten or tortured, and jailed, theory may not mean much) are only as good as the last legislative session, the next president willing to abuse the power of the executive, or the willingness of those empowered to use violence in the name of the state when a climate of fear and authoritarianism dominates.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ted Moffett</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/4/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">keely emerinemix</b> <<a href="mailto:kjajmix1@msn.com">kjajmix1@msn.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div>I was being somewhat sarcastic, Ted, and I guess it didn't come through. Ideally, you and I and everyone else who cares about justice would have a never-ending, unfading glow of pride in the United States' demonstrated commitment to basic human and civil rights -- but the reality, as you note below, is that our country has had a deplorable history of treating with righteousness and justice the poor, the vulnerable, the lost and the powerless. My intent was to remind Donovan, et al, that the very things we believe to be wonderful (wonderful, not unique) about the U.S. are those that cause consternation when others paraphrasing -- recklessly -- documents like the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Guia. del Migrantes Mexicanos. </span><br>
<br>That the U.S. is the hope and dream of many of the world's oppressed people makes it all the more shameful and bitterly ironic when those immigrants, detainees, and refugees are denied basic human rights. I consider it a minimum moral standard that undocumented immigrants be treated humanely and within the bounds of the Constitution, and my point to Donovan was that disseminating information about an immigrant's civil rights in the U.S. hardly constitutes an act of hostility toward the Constitution but rather a confirmation of its moral sense.<br>
<br>And, speaking of morals, I wish Donovan would dispense with the "Rev. Keely, moral elitist" thing. I think I deserve, frankly, to have "moral elitist" capitalized . . . <br><br>Keely<br><br><br><br>
<br><br><br>
<blockquote>
<hr>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 16:03:08 -0700<br>From: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com" target="_blank">starbliss@gmail.com</a><br>To: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:kjajmix1@msn.com" target="_blank">kjajmix1@msn.com</a><span class="q"><br>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Sali Seeks to Delay Mexican Consulate<br></span>CC: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com" target="_blank">donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com</a>; <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:joekc@adelphia.net" target="_blank">joekc@adelphia.net</a>; <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a>
<div><span class="e" id="q_119b645336163307_3"><br><br><br>
<div><span>On 5/4/08, <b>keely emerinemix</b> <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:kjajmix1@msn.com" target="_blank">kjajmix1@msn.com</a>> wrote:</span></div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">
<div><br> I feel a glow of pride in my country when I reflect on the fact that detainees cannot legally be hit, tortured, verbally abused, ... I've been accused of being unpatriotic, but I'm damned proud that whatever its myriad other faults, my country offers basic civil liberties to prisoners and detainees. I'm so sorry Donovan can't join me in that.<br>
<br>Keely</div></blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>I wish I could share Keely's glow of pride in the US's respect for basic civil rights, but in fact I am dismayed, disappointed and, when considering the gravity of the changes, shocked at the undermining of basic civil liberties by our government. I think it is easy to forget or downplay what has really happened to the guarantees of civil rights that many assume are respected by the world's leading "democracy." The changes are so incredible, denial is an understandable response. Of course, many people have never been fully aware of the full extent of the weakening of civil rights in the US.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Someone correct me if I misunderstand the current legal climate in the US regarding basic civil liberties, but I think the evidence demonstrates "basic civil liberties" have been recently, and still can be, denied to prisoners and detainees, both on US soil, and on "foreign" soil either under US control (Guantanamo), or transported to foreign soil by agents of the US to be held by foreign agents (rendered for interrogation using torture, in some cases, conducted by non-US agents, such as in Syria).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Unless the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and other actions passed by the US Congress, and relevant executive orders issued by the Bush administration, have been voided, "basic civil liberties," banning torture, and assuring the protections of habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment, and other Bill of Rights protections, can be denied to "detainees" and in fact to US citizens:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>At the URL below is a summary of changes to US law in recent years (post 9/11) regarding civil rights, with URLs to numerous sources on this subject:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://freedomfromfear.us/filemanager/active?fid=5" target="_blank"><font color="blue" size="2">http://freedomfromfear.us/filemanager/active?fid=5</font></a><br>
---------------</div>
<div>More commentary on the undermining of basic civil rights by our government:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.llrx.com/extras/militarycommissions.htm" target="_blank">http://www.llrx.com/extras/militarycommissions.htm</a></div>The Military Commissions Act threatens not just terrorists, but, as Senator Leahy noted in his <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=2416&wit_id=2629" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">testimony</font></a> September 26, it<br>
<blockquote><em>would permit the President to detain indefinitely - even for life - any alien, whether in the United States or abroad, whether a foreign resident or a lawful permanent resident, without any meaningful opportunity for the alien to challenge his detention. The Administration would not even need to assert, much less prove, that the alien was an enemy combatant; it would suffice that the alien was "awaiting [a] determination" on that issue. In other words, the bill would tell the millions of legal immigrants living in America, participating in American families, working for American businesses, and paying American taxes, that our Government may at any minute pick them up and detain them indefinitely without charge, and without any access to the courts or even to military tribunals, unless and until the Government determines that they are not enemy combatants.</em><br>
<em>Detained indefinitely, and unaccountably, until proven innocent.</em><br></blockquote>Others have gone further to state that it threatens American citizens. Marjory Cohn (<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:marjorie@tjsl.edu" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">email</font></a>, <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.tjsl.edu/faculty_m_cohn" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">website</font></a>), professor at <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.tjsl.edu/about_tjsl" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">Thomas Jefferson School of Law</font></a> in San Diego and president of the <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.nlg.org/about/aboutus.htm" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">National Lawyers Guild</font></a>, writing September 30, 2006 for the Legal Television Network, noted in her article, <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.legalnews.tv/commentary/the_military_commissions_act_unintended_consequences_20060930.html" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">"Military Commissions Act: Unintended Consequences?"</font></a><br>
<blockquote><em>Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."</em><br></blockquote>
She added,<br>
<blockquote><em>Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.</em><br>
</blockquote>In addition to both those criticisms, the Center for Constitutional Rights added in its <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/Docs/MCA_Signing_Briefing_Paper.pdf" target="_blank"><font color="#143d80">briefing paper</font></a> notes that:<br>
<blockquote><em>The definitions of rape and sexual assault are narrower than under international<br>law and have higher thresholds for proof.</em> </blockquote>It adds that the law authorizes:<br>
<ul>
<li>
<div><em>authorizes the President to determine what constitutes torture;</em> </div>
<li>
<div><em>authorizes the use of evidence obtained by coercion;</em> </div>
<li>
<div><em>authorizes the use of hearsay; and</em> </div>
<li>
<div><em>authorizes retroactive immunity for U.S. military and intelligence officials for<br>abuses that occurred at sites such as, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, Bagram and secret CIA facilities.</em> </div></li></li></li></li>
</ul>
<div>-------------------------------------------</div>
<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br> </div></span></div></blockquote><br>
<hr>
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