According to the Washington Post, there are several al Qaeda cells in place in the US. They are under surveillance by the FBI but so far no action has been taken because these people have entered the country legally and no tie can be found between them and the September 11 attacks.
Why must the FBI wait to take action? If the US is in a war, aren’t foreign nationals with demonstrable ties to the enemy organization subject to arrest for the duration at best and shot as spies at worst? After all, would we have tolerated a group of German soldiers living freely in Denver during WWII even if they were nice boys? Why should we be more patient now?
BTW, I am NOT advocating wholesale round-up of anyone. The FBI and CIA have these groups under surveillance because of known or strongly suspected ties to al Qaueda, but don’t know if the members are awaiting orders, spying, or just “sleeping”.
Where is the line of civil liberty and national security drawn when dealing with foreign nationals in the US? Do we have to wait for them to attack before taking action or can we play by different rules now that we are in, by most rhetoric, a war, with the organizations they support?
One problem is that “the German Army” (or the SS) were pretty well-defined organizations, whereas Al Qaeda is not. Exactly where do we draw the lines of “being a member of” and “having links to” and “being a sympathizer with”? This is why we are seeking evidence of direct involvement in criminal conspiracies. Otherwise, it could become pretty arbitrary.
“Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peacefully to assemble” – U.S. Constitution, Amendment I
… and this:
“No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” – U.S. Constitution, Amendment V
… not to mention this:
“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.” – U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV
Aftrer reading tracer’s post, I really wonder if the Founding Fathers really wrote the Constitution with the horrors of the current world in mind.
If Ben Franklin and Tom Jefferson had a crystal ball, and could see modern terrorism as it unfolds, what might they have done differently at the Constitutional Convention?
Should the Constitution be where the buck stops? Should it be sacrosanct? Unassailable?
I understand the “slippery-slope” arguments, but geez – what’s to stop terrorists from continuing to use the U.S.'s own freedoms against it? Seriously? It’s like the terrorists are using the Constitution’s protections the way a rat uses a hole in the wall of a grain silo.
Our founding fathers did have our current world in mind when they wrote the Constitution. They may not have had a clue of the specifics but they left an opening in the Constitution to have it amended so it could reflect the needs of the times.
I’ll grant the Amendment process isn’t an easy or fast thing such that it could be applied on a moment’s notice but that’s as it should be. The Constitution should only be fiddled with with great care.
It may be small consolation to the victims of September 11 and their families but our Constitution is one of the things that defines us as a nation. It is a BIG part of what makes us different from them (‘them’ being terrorists in this case). The United States is a country that values the rule of law and the importance of abiding by those laws even when they are inconvenient.
If I try and imagine myself as a victim of a terrorist’s crimes I can see how I, too, might wish that they all be rounded-up and the Constitution be damned. I have to wrestle with my own conscience continue to understand and hold dear the deeper, subtler issues involved that are what makes the United States the greatest nation on the planet and why it is worth dying for (although I certainly hope it never comes to that).
Suspend the Constitution and you hand the terrorists a victory of sorts by lessening what America is all about.
Just for the record, the Bill of Rights were not originally written into the U.S. Constitution. They were added by Congress and the States in 1791 as Constitutional Amendments, in response to concerns by the several State governments that the Federal government should have more limits placed on its powers in certain areas.
You’re quoting that entirely out of context. I find it difficult to believe that the Founding Fathers really wanted to protect the interests of criminal and subversive organizations driven by overseas interests and dedicated to the destruction of everything that the Founding Fathers ever stood for or cared about. If we have granted them these rights in which they themselves do not believe, and they abuse those rights in the process of slaughtering innocents, they are traitors. If convicted, I think they should swing from the nearest lamppost
I can’t believe that the Constitution would give hostiles a right to come to the US and set-up camp, entrench themselves, and gather intelligence and training while preventing the government from moving to prevent the danger. I would think this would be an even more serious affront to the First Amendment then yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater.
The rhetoric coming from both our government and the al Qaeda organization is that a state of war exists between these two powers. Since al Qaeda is not a nation-state in the traditional sense of the word, at best it may be a front organization for a hostile state, do we have to wait until they commit a hostile act or can we be pro-active to exterminate the cells?
Is there case law dealing with the situation of hostile foreign nationals operating on US soil outside the authority of a nation-state? Do we have to have guilt beyond a reasonable doubt with foreign hostiles to be able to put a stop to their operations?
Well, I think we have to have guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that they are in fact “foreign hostiles”, and not just devout Muslim guys who think countries like the U.S. are probably going to hell in a handbasket 'cause our women walk around with their calves visible (but we sure do know how to run an electrical engineering school!), and who have a second cousin whose best buddy went off to fight the Commies in Afghanistan back in the '80’s.
If the FBI really has identified these people as being al Qaueda members and have them under survellance, then there are many options open. Easiest one I can think of is the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS has pretty broad and arbitrary powers regarding non-US citizens. The INS can and has deported a lot of undesireables over the years. Look at how many people got rounded up after 11 September and held on suspicion of violating immigration law as a cover while being investigated. Also, while they are not supposed to, the IRS could get in the act.