# Civil liberties eroded by "panic" now officially a fringe view **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 8, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160 "2010-01-08T14:50:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/61 "2010-01-09T20:05:17Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > Could you provide a link to the filing where he “rejected” #1\*. I only thought Obama never asserted (was silent) that he was relying on inherent Prez power to detain, and instead just argued he had authority from the AUMF. Your recollection is accurate, but I think his actions amount to rejection. In a case in which Bush was arguing for Article II detention powers before he left office, the Obama administration amended the government’s position when he came into office to rely only on AUMF powers. ([Cite.](http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:WLZWx2j-sfoJ:https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc%3F2008cv1236-116+obama+article+II+detention&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbRWT0IFFBTUCgb9tftHPaOO1yWkHw)) That’s not an explicit rejection, but it is an implicit one, since failure to assert the argument would mean they would be unable to rely on it later. Additionally, the administration maintained, contrary to the DC Circuit’s ruling, that international law does apply to this detention power. I’m not sure that argument would be consistent with the assertion of an inherent Article II power to detain. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/62 "2010-01-09T21:31:53Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Your recollection is accurate, but I think his actions amount to rejection. In a case in which Bush was arguing for Article II detention powers before he left office, the Obama administration amended the government’s position when he came into office to rely only on AUMF powers. ([Cite.](http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:WLZWx2j-sfoJ:https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc%3F2008cv1236-116+obama+article+II+detention&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbRWT0IFFBTUCgb9tftHPaOO1yWkHw)) That’s not an explicit rejection, but it is an implicit one, since failure to assert the argument would mean they would be unable to rely on it later. Thanks for the cite. I’ve always thought of it in terms of two separate administrations (one claiming it exists, the other not rejecting that claim), instead of one continuous Government. One continuous Executive practice is a nice distinction (and absolutely much more accurate), and does make it an implicit rejection. It implicitly breaks the Executive’s inherent power to detain, assuming there ever was a power. A future court would now have a tough time finding an inherent Executive power to detain after a President stops claiming it. There may be some wiggle room, but not as much as I was thinking. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/63 "2010-01-09T23:22:20Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](#): > > “Official stance”? Can you substantiate this claim, please? More to the point, can **Obama** substantiate his claim? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/64 "2010-01-10T06:44:16Z")
All of this is still strong evidence of why electing Obama was a good choice. Because Bush didn’t just maintain existing policies - he enacted the bad policies that we now have to live with. And McCain showed every sign of doing more of the same. So if Obama doesn’t repeal a single bad law or take any other action between now and 2016, he’ll have done better than Bush did. “Keeping things the same” is a goal to strive for when the alternative is “making things worse”. Sometimes having somebody put down the shovel is all you can hope for. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/65 "2010-01-10T15:14:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > “Keeping things the same” is a goal to strive for when the alternative is “making things worse”. Sometimes having somebody put down the shovel is all you can hope for. I completely disagree. If Obama had not ended torture, for example, I would consider him every bit as responsible as Bush, even if he did not escalate its use. It can be difficult to repeal bad policies. But that provides no excuse when it comes to executive orders, and no excuse for the positions the administration takes with regard to congressional action. ---
**Author:** ![Defero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@Defero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defero)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/66 "2010-01-18T13:23:33Z")
For those few that still don’t understand just how much of a contrived issue terrorism is: “The government spends upwards of $30 billion a year on homeland security. Such spending seems important. Since 2001, 2,996 people in the United States have died from terrorism – all as a result of the 9/11 attacks. In that same period of time, 490,000 people have died from prescription drugs, not counting the Vioxx scandal. That means that prescription drugs in this country are at least 16,400 percent deadlier than terrorism. Again, those are the conservative numbers. A more realistic number, which would include deaths from over-the-counter drugs, makes drug consumption 32,000 percent deadlier than terrorism. But the scope of “Death by Medicine” is even wider. Conventional medicine, including unnecessary surgeries, bedsores and medical errors, is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism. Yet, our government’s attention and money is not put into reforming health care.” from [Statistics prove prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists - NaturalNews.com](http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html) And what about the fact that poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths per year, 16.6 percent) has racked up a FEW MILLION KILLS since 9-11. If there were the slightest value actually placed on our lives then it would be the drug and food companies that would have armies of DHS swarming them at all times. There would be hundreds of daily arrests which would result in hundreds of thousands of lives saved. They would be detecting and eliminating some of the death we are dealt by big pharma and big corp. How can any rational person not realize that this is about control, and that saving lives is simply not even a remote factor? And lets count the war on terror…how many of us are dead from that? Upward of 20,000? Hello? Does this make any sense? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/67 "2010-01-18T14:05:50Z")
> [@Defero](#): > > Yet, our government’s attention and money is not put into reforming health care." from [Statistics prove prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists - NaturalNews.com](http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html) I think that a lot of things were done hastily and poorly in the fear of terrorism. I generally support some form of health care reform. This is still a dumb argument. Reshaping the funding of health care, (which is what health care reform intends), will not have any significant effect on the number of deaths due to medical errors. Doctors will continue to make errors on prescriptions that are not caught in time. Pharmacists and nurses will continue to make errors in distributing and administering drugs. Patients and caregivers will continue to provide the wrong dosages out of carelessness or misunderstanding. Manufacturers will continue to have quality control issues during manufacturing and distribution that contaminate or render drugs ineffective or actually harmful. Drugs that have tested as safe in extensive controlled studies will continue to turn up with adverse reactions when administered to the population, at large. There will continue to be rare instances of fraud in the testing or manufacture. These are the causes of “drug deaths” and they will not be changed in any significant way by “health care reform.” In addition, society has already come to grips with the daily cost of drug deaths because they are scattered across the entire population and occur at a slow rate with wide distribution. There is a difference between events that occur one-by-one across the individual actions of over 300 million people and the events that occur through planning and overt action at a specific time and place. A terrorist attack could cause serious harm to the economy or health of the entire nation in a way that continues to affect the overall well being of the nation for years. (Look at what the WTC/Pentagon attacks did to the nascent recovery from the 2000 recession.) Again: I am opposed to terror hysteria, but your argument is not pertinent to the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Defero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@Defero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defero)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160/68 "2010-01-18T16:10:31Z")
If what you are saying is true, then you think that $30 Billion spent on health per year could not save 2996 lives in eight years. There is no rational justification for spending that kind of cash that pertains to keeping us alive and safe. The officially stated aim of the terrorists in knocking down the towers was “get off our land and we will leave you alone”. Anyone ever consider that we could just never worry about terrorism if we weren’t creating thousands of new terrorists every month by not only staying on their land, but moving a million more folks onto it? It’s a no-brainer. And the cost-benefit analysis is the MOST relevant possible thing to this discussion. We are broke. Beyond broke, trillions in debt. Any policy which diverts trillions (incl. the war efforts) away from saving our lives in real an meaningful ways here are home is not stupid, it’s very smart and very calculated by the people who benefit from it. It’s about control. Terror has nothing at all to do with it. It’s a fiction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-liberties-eroded-by-panic-now-officially-a-fringe-view/524160.md?page=3)