"The Most Hostile in History to the Bill of Rights"

An acquaintance now living in Europe went on one of his rants about how the Bush Administration is "the most hostile in history to the Bill of Rights." This is very typical rhetoric in a lot of circles today, especially by those who are either too ignorant, or too dishonest, to admit the real situation.

Let me respond to just one of your statements below which really captures how severely you have been lied to. To claim that the Bush Administration is the "most hostile in history to the Bill of Rights"--let's compare their actions (not all of which I have agreed with) to those of previous administrations at war--and sometimes in peace. I'm not saying that I approve of all the previous actions, or of all of Bush's actions below; my point is that your overheated rhetoric is profoundly ignorant.

Let's see: President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus because he had the military arrest about 13,000 people for criticizing his actions. When the Supreme Court ruled against Lincoln, and ordered him to bring an Maryland secessionist to court--he ignored them. See here for the background; here for the decision which Lincoln ignored. Lincoln ordered the arrest of members of the Maryland legislature who were known to be sympathetic to the Confederacy.

I happen to agree that Padilla should have been given access to civilian courts immediately. He was a U.S. citizen; he was arrested in the United States. I suspect that the reason that the courts have bent over backward to accommodate the Bush Administration on this (although Padilla's civilian trial is now underway) is because of the stated reason: concern that a trial might expose intelligence methods. But you want to compare Padilla's situation with arresting people for simply speaking in opposition to the government? Please.

During World War I, the United States made it a criminal offense to distribute anti-draft literature. The Supreme Court upheld this law in Schenck v. U.S. (1919), the famous case in which noted liberal Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., declared that freedom of speech did not include the right to shout fire in a crowded theater.

By comparison, Rosie O'Donnell and a fair scattering of lefty academics insist that Bush (sometimes with the help of the JOOOS!) set up, or at least allowed the 9/11 attacks to take place. This is a FAR more serious situation than distributing anti-draft literature. How many equivalents of Schenck are there? Even one?

After World War I, in response to a series of bombings in American cities (including outside U.S. Attorney-General Palmer's house), the so-called Palmer raids took place. As this account observes,

Working with Bureau of Immigration officials, Palmer decided to launch a massive round-up of aliens (non-U.S. citizens) suspected of having revolutionary views. The purpose of these "Red Raids" was to arrest and deport so-called dangerous foreigners before they could bring about a violent revolution in America. However, during and after the raids, government agents violated virtually every element of "due process of law" mentioned in the Constitution.

By comparison, after 9/11, several thousand non-resident aliens were arrested for questioning; the vast majority were either released or deported for being illegally in the U.S. The equivalent to the Palmer Raids? Not even close.

During World War II, tens of thousands of non-resident enemy aliens were arrested and held for some months while arrangements were made to exchange them for Americans caught in the Axis powers at the start of the war. About 110,000 U.S. citizens and resident aliens were interned. By comparison, what has the Bush Administration done that is even a pale shadow of this?

During World War II, we had an organized and active censorship organization that restricted all newspapers and media on what they could report. Admittedly, this was almost entirely a voluntary activity, since nearly all Americans agreed that beating the Axis was the most important priority. For a large fraction of Americans today, beating the Republicans is more important than beating al-Qaeda. I have been told repeatedly that the American Taliban (Christian Republicans) is a greater danger to Americans than al-Qaeda.

What censorship has the Bush Administration engaged in? Even one example?

During World War II (and right into the early 1970s), the Armed Forces Security Agency and its successor, the National Security Agency, regularly wiretapped all communications going in and out of the United States without any warrants. James Bamford's Inside the Puzzle Palace is a detailed history of the NSA and discusses all of this, along with why Congress created the Foreign Intelligence Security Act court to issue secret wiretap warrants.

While I agree that Bush Administration should have gone through the FISA process--or, if it was, as they claim, too unwieldy in the modern age, asked Congress to update the statute--to suggest that the Bush Administration in time of war was doing something worse than was common and even unremarkable in peacetime is just overheated political rhetoric.

Concerning the kidnapping of suspected (and in some cases, actual) terrorists in foreign countries. I hope that this isn't a surprise to you, but every major power has engaged in kidnappings and assassinations in foreign countries for many decades. When the Jack the Ripper killings started, Scotland Yard actually considered the possibility that this might be something done by the Czarist secret police as a way of destabilizing Britain. Israel (oh, those evil JOOOOS!) kidnapped Eichmann in 1960 to spirit him off to trial.

I agree with you that some of the actions that have been taken have probably not been very effective, and some have considerable danger of abuse--all the more reason to try and win the war, so that we can repeal these before they become something that we learn to live with. The 90 day detention without trial measure that was under discussion in Britain (I thought it had actually passed) is pretty frightening. I think I would rather have the government break a law on rare occasions if the need is real--and rely on an executive or legislative pardon--rather than regularize and codify something so that it becomes acceptable. If the need to hold people without charges or incommunicado becomes so common that we need to make it the norm, we've probably already lost.