(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

HTML Mencken at Sadly, No! has a great post from 3/10/07 called “Gaywads Want to Persecute Religious People!” While his post is pithier and funnier than this one will be, its substance directly relates to The Chart Project, most specifically The Social Tolerance Charts and The Religion-in-Society Charts, so I felt compelled to take another look.

Again, I-d read the Sadly, No! post first. But here are the key points of a little discussion over at the Corner at the National Review Online.

In a 3/9/07 post, “Can Religious Freedom Survive Gay Liberation?” David Frum argues that:

There is a widespread view that gay liberation is a movement toward greater freedom. Up to a point, that was true. That point, however, is now receding in the background. The movement for gay equality has rapidly evolved into movement to restrict personal freedoms, including freedoms of religion and conscience. The British example is not a special case. What is being done there today will be demanded here tomorrow.

Andrew Stuttaford, who HTML Mencken describes as “a libertarian and frequently an adult voice in contrast to the Corner’s playground cacaphony,” replies (also on 3/9/07):

Can Religious Freedom Survive Gay Liberation

That’s the question David Frum asks over on his blog. Sure it can.

The more interesting question however is the extent to which religious belief should be privileged above all others. You can, quite legitimately, question the range and definition of anti-discrimination laws, but once a democracy has put those laws in place, I can think of no particular reason why some people should be exempted from that law, simply on the grounds of religion. To do so is to say that religious belief is somehow more deserving of special protection than other (perhaps no less deeply held) ideologies, an idea that, however well-intentioned, is irrational at best, dangerous at worse.

Read more »

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

Continuing The Chart Project, this third installment looks at religion in society. In the past month or so, religion has been a hotter topic than usual in the liberal blogosphere. (My own feelings and beliefs regarding religion are pretty irrelevant to this post, but perhaps I-ll get to them at some later point.)

Of course, there is a difference between people who are simply religious and authoritarians with a religious bent. Obviously not all religious conservatives share the extreme authoritarianism that characterizes “the religious right” as a political and social force (and most religious liberals and moderates do not). I imagine most readers of this post will be familiar with the tenor and actions of the religious right in America, and to a lesser degree the authoritarian branch of the religious left in America. If that’s not the case, or a refresher is desired, let me provide some links.
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A WHITE HOUSE privacy board…..that kinda says it all, doesn’t it?

WASHINGTON - A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush administration’s controversial surveillance programs - electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking - and says they do not violate citizens’ civil liberties.

Democrats newly in charge of Congress quickly criticized the findings, which they said were questionable given some of the board members’ close ties with the Bush administration.

“Their current findings and any additional conclusions they reach will be taken with a grain of salt until they become fully independent,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee.

After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is preparing to release its first report to Congress next week.

The report finds that both the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program and the Treasury Department’s monitoring of international banking transactions have sufficient privacy protections, three board members told The Associated Press in telephone interviews.

Both programs have multiple layers of review before sensitive information is accessed, they said.

“We looked at the program, we visited NSA and met with the top people all the way down to those doing the hands-on work,” said Carol Dinkins, a Houston lawyer and former Reagan administration assistant attorney general who chairs the board.

“The program is structured and implemented in a way that is properly protective and attentive to civil liberties,” she said.

Some board members were troubled by the Homeland Security Department’s error-ridden no-fly lists, which critics say use subjective or inconclusive data to flag suspect travelers.

One area the board will focus on in its report is the computerized anti-terrorism screening system recently announced by DHS and used for years without travelers’ knowledge to assign risk assessments to millions of Americans who fly abroad.

More at YahooNews

I needed something uplifting today, so I listened to Al Gore’s speech from January 2006 at the American Constitution Society. This was a great speech……..the man moved me that day. Too bad Bush has continued to abuse the constitution and the rule of law has NOT been restored. But I digress…….

We are proud to welcome Brandon Mayfield as our first guest blogger at Project Hamad. His story is a cautionary one for anyone who thinks the suspension of habeas corpus, or the passage of the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), have no implications for the civil rights and liberties of law-abiding citizens. A Kansas-born U.S. Citizen, a former Army Lieutenant, an attorney in Portland, Oregon, Brandon Mayfield was wrongly accused and incarcerated for the terrorist bombings in Madrid, Spain. Prior to his arrest the FBI had Mr. Mayfield and his family under warrantless surveillance and Mr. Mayfield is reasonably certain they broke into his house twice during this time period.

The FBI was positive they had a fingerprint match with one found on detonators in Spain. The fingerprint was described as a “100% match”, an “absolutely incontrovertible match” and a “bingo match.” On the other hand, when they sent Mayfield’s prints to the Spanish authorities they replied that his prints were “conclusively negative.” The FBI later admitted that Mayfield’s Muslim faith may have caused them to disregard the repeated reservations of the Spanish authorities regarding the fingerprint.

Continue reading here

Best thing I read all day…..

RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 1 - In a series of probing and sometimes testy exchanges with a government lawyer, two of three judges on a federal appeals court panel here indicated Thursday that they might not be prepared to accept the Bush administration’s claim that it has the unilateral power to detain people it calls enemy combatants.

The case was brought by Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who is the only person on the American mainland being held as an enemy combatant, at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Mr. Marri, a legal resident whom the government calls a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, was arrested in Peoria, Ill., on Dec. 12, 2001, where he was living with his family and studying computer science at Bradley University.

“What would prevent you from plucking up anyone and saying, A-You are an enemy combatant?- ” Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit asked the administration’s lawyer, David B. Salmons.

Mr. Salmons said the executive branch was entitled to make that judgment in wartime without interference from the courts. “A citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant,” he added.

Read more at the New York Times

Go Janet Go!!

By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press
Monday, November 20, 2006; 10:27 PM

WASHINGTON — Former Attorney General Janet Reno and seven other former Justice Department officials filed court papers Monday arguing that the Bush administration is setting a dangerous precedent by trying a suspected terrorist outside the court system.
It was the first time that Reno, attorney general in the Clinton administration, has spoken out against the administration’s policies on terrorism detainees, underscoring how contentious the court fight over the nation’s new military commissions law has become. Former attorneys general rarely file court papers challenging administration policy.

Suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is the only detainee being held in the United States.

More here

The Democrats better get to repealing the Detainee Bill quick and in a hurry come January.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report.

The analysis of transcripts and records by two lawyers for Guantanamo detainees, aided by more than two dozen law students, found that hearings that determined whether a prisoner should remain in custody gave the accused little opportunity to contest allegations against him.

“These were not hearings. These were shams,” said Mark Denbeaux, an attorney and Seton Hall University law professor who along with his son, Joshua, is the author of the report. They provided an advance copy of the report to The Associated Press late Thursday and planned to release it Friday on the Internet.

Among their findings:

The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was “no longer an enemy combatant,” but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

More here

Retired Federal Judges Join Detainees in Effort to Overturn Tribunal Law

Seven retired federal judges from both political parties have joined dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees in urging an appeals court to declare key parts of President Bush’s new anti-terrorism law unconstitutional.

The judges, in a rare court filing Wednesday, said stripping courts of the right to question how the military handles terrorism suspects “challenges the integrity of our judicial system” and effectively sanctions the use of torture.

Bush signed a law this month allowing the military to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without allowing them to use the U.S. courts to contest their detention. Bush hailed the law, which established a system of military trials, as a crucial tool in the war on terrorism and said it would allow prosecution of several high-level terror suspects.

For detainees challenging their imprisonment, the law locks them out of the civilian court system. Dozens of detainees argued Wednesday that the law is unconstitutional, and the retired judges echoed that in their own papers filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“We believe that compelling this court to sanction executive detentions based on evidence that has been condemned in the American legal system since our nation’s founding erodes the vital role of the judiciary in safeguarding the rule of law,” the judges wrote.

continue reading

Here we go………

By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer | November 1, 2006

WASHINGTON –Lawyers for dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to declare a key part of President Bush’s new military trials law unconstitutional.

The detainees’ lawyers challenged the military’s authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without allowing them to use the U.S. courts to contest their detention.

Bush gave the military that authority last month when he signed a new law that sets up special commissions to hold trials for foreigners designated as “enemy combatants.” Bush hailed the law as a crucial tool in the war on terrorism and said it would allow prosecution of several high-level terror suspects.

Read more at Boston.com

Lowell Ponte is a former editor of Readers Digest magazine. His take on things:

1. Non-citizens are voting.
2. Districts are gerrymandered.
3. Elections are dishonest.
4. Ballots can be manipulated.
5. Our politics is a duopoly.
6. This duopoly is the Republican and Democratic Parties.
7. Political parties have been taken over.
8. Candidates lie.
9. Judges, not voters, are starting to decide our elections.

He explains here

Keith Olbermann speaks of Habeas Corpus and the signing of the Military Commissions Act today.

This poor schmuck……he’s no Al-Qaida operative.

Criminal charges against accused al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla should be thrown out because of “outrageous government conduct” during his 31/2-year detention in a U.S. Navy brig in South Carolina, Padilla’s defense lawyers say. “The government’s conduct vis-a-vis Mr. Padilla is a stain on this nation’s character, and through its illegal conduct, the government has forfeited its right to prosecute Mr. Padilla,” his lawyers said in a legal motion filed this week.

In two additional motions, the lawyers argue the case should be dismissed because the government took too much time between arresting Padilla and charging him.

They contend Padilla’s ability to defend himself is compromised as a result of the delay and the mental trauma he suffered.

Full story at the Sun Sentinel

(Updated below)

(crossposted at Vagabond Scholar)

John Yoo has a new book to shill, and thus is making the circuit again, demonstrating the same keen legal analysis that blithely excuses torture and the elimination of the Great Writ of habeas corpus. Let’s be frank - Yoo’s law degree and professorship not withstanding, his knowledge of the United States Constitution and the Federalist papers is inferior to that of a smart high school student. (Does that seem harsh? See the end of this post.)

The reason Yoo is still a player at all is because of his culpability in drafting the torture guidelines for the Bush administration. As with Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (or President Bush, for that matter), Yoo’s views are treated seriously only because of his position of power (or past position), not due to merit, insight, or basic knowledge. Yoo has been an useful idiot, all too willing (along with David Addington, Gonzales, William Haynes and others) to try to cobble together a legal justification for the Bush administration’s desire for absolute, unchecked power in virtually every field. It is not as if Yoo or his compatriots had a starting point of “let’s see what the law says here.” Theirs are the actions of defense attorneys trying to protect their clients from prosecution for wrongdoing past, present and future. Reason, consideration of consequences, and examination of precedent do not often intrude, because even a casual flirtation with such dangerously sensible approaches would demolish their fanciful effort like the house of cards it is.

Yoo was on NPR this morning, offering some new nuggets as he commented on the new detainee laws (The Military Commissions Act of 2006). At least Yoo acknowledged that innocent people could be imprisoned. But one of his most laughable excuses for destroying due process is that that due process is - “too expensive.”

Here’s the audio clip, as well as an excerpt from his book.

As was the case with Robert Bork, we would all be far worse off if the world were run by John Yoo. Of course, what can anyone expect from a man who so dispassionately asserts that the President of the United States has the legal right to have a child’s testicles crushed?

_______________________________________

Here’s a Yoo round-up, featuring analysis of some disingenuous and illogical gems from the man himself, for those who would defend his legal acumen, let alone his moral reasoning:

A Washington Post portrait.

Glenn Greenwald’s Yoo posts, plus a post on Federalist #69.

TalkLeft’s Yoo posts, including a piece on the WaPo portrait here.

Firedoglake’s Yoo posts, most specifically a piece on the WaPo portrait here.

Josh Marshall’s Yoo posts, including a piece on the WaPo portrait here.

Marty Lederman’s writings dealing with Yoo,

Law professor Michael Froomkin (at Discourse.net) on Yoo, in particular this post.

Anonymous Liberal’s Yoo posts.

Oh, and why not throw in the Lawyers, Guns and Money Yoo posts as well.

Finally, I have an older, tangential post on Alberto Mora which links one of Jane Meyer’s superb, in-depth New Yorker articles on torture and the battle over it inside the Bush administration.

Update: NPR now has reader comments posted on the Yoo page linked above. They played a few this morning (audio here). My favorite comes from a federal judge:

‘Can This Be America?’

Listening to John Yoo talk about this new legislation was chilling. I’m a federal judge, and have taught constitutional law for 16 years. The very idea of holding anyone without trial, without the right to see the evidence that was used to justify naming them an “enemy combatant,” and depriving them of the ability to challenge why they are even there is so repugnant to a constitutional democracy that I am shocked that this man actually claims to be defending American values. These are the tactics of the old Soviet Union, not of a country that stands for freedom and the rule of law.

I also quibble with his contention that U.S. citizens still have the right to habeas review. I’ve read the law. The president can form his own tribunal, which can determine who is an “enemy combatant” (not just an alien enemy combatant), and the decision of that tribunal would not be subject to habeas review. Moreover, persons targeted by this tribunal would not even have access to the military tribunal trial created under this law.

How easy it would be for a president to use such a law to make his political enemies simply disappear. Can this be America?
– Leif Clark, San Antonio, Texas

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush’s anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president’s judgments in wartime.

He said the Constitution makes the president commander in chief and the Supreme Court has long recognized the president’s pre-eminent role in foreign affairs. “The Constitution, by contrast, provides the courts with relatively few tools to superintend military and foreign policy decisions, especially during wartime,” the attorney general told a conference on the judiciary at Georgetown University Law Center.

“Judges must resist the temptation to supplement those tools based on their own personal views about the wisdom of the policies under review,” Gonzales said.

article here