Civil Rights vs “stay the course”

On Thursday US-Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered a stop to the NSA-SpySurveillance-program in a major blow to President Bush’s “stay the course”-doctrine. In the case ACLU1 vs NSA the judge agreed that the surveillance-program collided with the first and fourth amendment of the US-Constitution and the Seperation of Power Doctrine and was therefore illegal as long as the NSA doesn’t get a judge’s permission to observe and spy on a specific person or organisation2.

Civil Rights over party lines

The news of the judge’s decision might give the democrats some lift in the upcoming mid-term elections. No wonder then, that republicans rally around and declare “Ability To Fight Terror Weakened by Liberal Judge” revealing that they think some judges were “out of control”3 and hoping for another court to revise the decision in favor of the president.

Most likely, thank Goodness, the 6th circuit court of appeals will overturn this liberals decision.

Can you believe that after the week we’ve had with terror threats that any judge in America would try and tie the hands of the government from protecting us from terrorists! [sic]

This just shows how out of control some judges have become in America.

Of course, boundless wiretapping isn’t the first offence to the Constitution the current Administration has committed. Just weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled, that the president didn’t have the authority to form special military tribunals that would try Guantanamo prisoners4. Later this year a court will be held on the matter of “data-mining”. So it will surely not be the last court decision to rebuke an executive order of the president.

Meanwhile in Germany the line between the parties arguing about security vs. freedom isn’t strictly bound by party-lines. While German Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) has found yet another excuse to push forward the plan for a centralized Counter-Terror-file including all the data gathered about a person allegedly connected to terror plots, the plan is the same one (with minor changes), that former Minister of the Interior Otto Schily (SPD) tried to get through parliament. Still some differences remain in the big-coalition between conservatives and socialdemocrats.

Towards a police state

Some republicans seem to think, that the failed attempts of turning America into a police-state aren’t enough. Recently a call for “Muslim-only” security lines has been defended on FOX-News (video):

“It’s time to have a Muslims check-point line in America’s airports and have Muslims be scrutinized. You better believe it, it’s time,” Gallagher said, garnering tepid audience applause.

Gross attacked the proposal as “absolutely wrong” because “most Arabs are not Muslims, most Muslims are not Arabs. You don’t even have your facts straight. How would you feel if we had a line for the Irish, which the English proposed during the IRA problems?” He pleaded not to turn the United States into a “tyrannical, imperial country.” Still, a woman in the audience asked a question about being “politically correct” by not allowing racial profiling.

Gallagher claimed that opposition to racial profiling amounted to not wanting to hurt people’s feelings.

“Most Americans want prejudice. Let’s be prejudiced against those who want to slaughter innocent American men, women and children. It’s time we start exercising some prejudice and stop these bloody terrorists,” Gallagher said, this time drawing more robust applause.

The idea isn’t only echoed in the USA, but also in Great Britain.

Nach Informationen der Zeitung „The Times“ wird im Transportministerium darüber nachgedacht, Passagiere, die sich verdächtig verhalten, einen ungewöhnlichen Reiseweg haben oder einen bestimmten religiösen oder ethnischen Hintergrund haben, besonders zu kontrollieren. Ein Sprecher des Ministeriums sagte, es gebe schon heute „mehrstufige“ Sicherheitskontrollen, die jetzt eventuell angepasst werden müssten. Details gab er nicht bekannt. Der ehemalige Scotland-Yard-Chef Lord Stevens sagte, das Flughafen-Chaos könnte vermindert werden, wenn man sich auf einige Passagiere konzentrieren würde. Der Fokus liege dabei „auf jungen muslimischen Männern“.

Nils Zurawski asks the obvious question: How do you know if someone is a muslim? You can’t go after the looks5 not only because “muslims” (as christians for example) aren’t heterogenic but also because you may hit the ‘wrong’ guy.

Letztendlich stellt sich bei alledem die eine wichtige Frage: Wie erkennt man den religiösen Hintergrund von Muslimen (oder anderen), die keine Kopftuch, Bart, Mütze oder den Koran offen auf dem Arm tragen….?? Ohne hier mit Totschlageargumenten zu kommen… die Idee hinterlässt doch einen obszönen Beigeschmack, der an längst vergangen gedachte Zeiten erinnert.

Nils seems to remind us, that such a discrimination against muslims (especially marking them) looks like Nazi-Germany’s Law demanding from Jews to wear a yellow star. In fact, a poll conducted end of July concludes that “[a]lmost four in ten, 39%, [Americans] advocate that Muslims here [in the USA] should carry special I.D.”. Anybody think i’m extreme in linking this to the “Judenstern” of Nazi-Germany??

But even if it was possible to somehow ‘detect’ and mark muslimness6 how would that help in detecting non-muslim terrorists such as the recent “Seas of David” or the Oklahoma City Terrorists? On the other hand: If the only danger to society really comes from islamic terrorists, shouldn’t we spare ourselves the costs of this huge amount of security and just put all the muslims into prison? Wouldn’t that make it much easier to travel? Of course this would include fighting the socalled PC-Police but right-wing advocates in most countries are suggesting exactly that, so why not go all the way?

Either way, with this decision ‘civil liberties’ could become an issue at the mid-terms - now that the political fighting over who loves America and who hates it have begun:

The National Republican Senatorial Campaign challenged Democratic candidates to “stand up in opposition to a liberal judge,” and the RNC released an Internet advertisement painting the Democrats as soft on defense.

The ad shows prominent Democrats decrying warrantless wiretapping, abusive interrogations, ballistic missile defense, and the war in Iraq through the opening of a cave, meant to represent the vantage point for terrorists.7

Submitted to Carnival of German-American Relations

  1. Full list of plaintiffs includes American Civil Liberties Union foundation; American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan; Council on American-Islamic Relations; Council on American Islamic Relations Michigan; Greenpeace Inc.; National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; James Bamford; Larry Diamond; Christopher Hitchens; Tara McKelvey and Barnett R. Rubin[↩]
  2. as stated in FISA[↩]
  3. who should control judges other than the normal boundries of the law??[↩]
  4. The white house announced, that it wants to change the normal military tribunals to “include allowing hearsay evidence, limiting rights against self-incrimination before a trial, and limiting defendants’ access to classified information” via[↩]
  5. as Michael Smerconish suggests[↩]
  6. there could be grades beginning with ‘he has a funny name’ to ‘long beard with dark skin tone’[↩]
  7. if anybody has this ad, i would like to have it too..[↩]

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categories Ausland, Datenschutz, Inland, Islam, Sicherheit, medien | authorOmar | 19. August 2006

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