Mask of Moderation
Hentoff, Nat
Bill of Rights Watch Nat Hentoff Mask of Moderation Increasingly, some of the lower federal courts are remembering the separation of powers. On March 30, U.S. Federal District Judge Henry Kennedy...
...Another blow against renditions but only a preliminary action...
...Meanwhile, the "sea change" in the Administration has not affected FBI Director Robert Mueller who, on April 5, asked the Senators to expand the FBI's administrative subpoenas, which allow the FBI to give itself permission to obtain all manner of records...
...The names of those organizations have not been disclosed...
...Leahy will try to attach it to an appropriations measure, but the rigid Senate Republican leadership could kill it on the floor...
...No judge is involved...
...He is the author of "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance...
...Meanwhile, the amiable, manipulative Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is apparently softening some opponents of the Patriot Act by-as Eric Lichtblau reports in The New York Times-"wooing membersofCongress withastyle that Republicans and Democrats alike regarded as more conciliatory than that of his predecessor...
...That same section empowers the FBI to seize all medical records of hospitals, and business records of other institutions...
...Even Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, seems to be beguiled by the gentle, conciliatory overtures of Gonzales...
...And he is the same Gonzales who, as counselor to Bush, orchestrated the memos rationalizing torture-not only in CIA extraditions but by our regular forces...
...Federal District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr...
...The next day, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, submitted a bill, "The Convention Against Torture Act," that would put a definitive end to renditions...
...prevented the government from "unilaterally and silently" transferring detainees outside the jurisdiction of U.S...
...In a tiny story buried in the April 8 New York Times, the ever vigilant Neil Lewis reported: "Pentagon planners are proposing that military commanders be authorized to declare someone an enemy combatant and detain him if he belongs to any of hundreds of suspected organizations"-and hold him indefinitely without charges...
...The sea is even more turbulent than ever in Donald Rumsfeld's domain...
...This is how Gonzales operates...
...He told the Senators he favors a modification of the sharply controversial Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to give the FBI unchecked power to get library records and then impose a gag rule forbidding the library to tell anyone, including the press, of the FBI visit...
...On March 16, the House, little noticed by the media, passed an amendment by Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill that prohibited the government from using any funds that violate the International Convention Against Torture...
...The Attorney General's tone at the April 5 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee marked "a sea change in the Administration's attitude," said Feingold...
...But under the calming waters is the same Gonzales who told the President he could imprison American citizens as "enemy combatants" indefinitely without charges...
...Just in case, check your membership cards...
...However, Section 215 also permits further ransacking of the Fourth Amendment by allowing the FBI to grab the entire database of a library without showing that any unsuspecting individual borrower of books is in any way connected to terrorism...
...Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Village Voice, Free Inquiry, and The Progressive...
...Gonzales would allow the librarian to consult a lawyer, but that's all...
...The true chilling climate of the Administration was revealed when Gonzales's appeasement mask slipped for a moment as he told Senators, "Now is not the time for us to be engaging in unilateral disarmament" on the methods in the Patriot Act and the executive orders the Administration wields to fight terrorism...
...But there is no sign that the intermittently independent-minded Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on the bill...
...This includes the "rendition" by the CIA of suspects to countries known for torturing prisoners-a practice the President and the Attorney General repeatedly say doesn't happen...
Vol. 69 • June 2005 • No. 6
