Legal costs of terror war

The Bush administration believes habeas corpus is a luxury the United States cannot afford in its war on terror.

The legal principle of habeas corpus is the foundation of Anglo-American freedom. It prevents the government from picking up a person and holding him indefinitely without charge.

Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler were not constrained by habeas corpus. They were able to declare millions of people “enemies” and send them off to death camps. People were declared enemies because of their class and race, or simply because someone with the power to put their name on a list did not like them or coveted their wife or property. In the Soviet Union many people disappeared in “street sweeps” by secret police pressured to arrest more “enemies.”

The Bush administration’s attempt to legally suspend habeas corpus in the Patriot Act was rebuffed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner. Wisconsin Republican. Now the Department of Justice (sic) and the Department of Defense are trying to assert the power to suspend habeas corpus by bureaucratic decree.

The Bush administration claims the power to declare suspected terrorists “enemy combatants” and hold them indefinitely without bringing charges, presenting evidence or permitting suspects contact with attorneys or any outside persons. The Justice Department recently told the Supreme Court that “the court owes the executive branch great deference in matters of national security and military affairs.” In other words, “Buzz off, and leave terrorism to us.”

Harvey Silverglate, a noted civil libertarian, on March 6 explained in the Boston Phoenix that suspending habeas corpus leaves a suspect without hope and permits prosecutors to coerce guilty pleas regardless of guilt.

Mr. Silverglate points out that zeal in pursuing results in the war on terror is creating a “Darkness at Noon” legal system in the United States. Suspects who can be coerced into guilty pleas are given a public show trial. Recalcitrants are declared “enemy combatants” and shipped off to Guantanamo or held offshore on ships beyond the reach of the legal system. Even U.S. citizens are dealt with in this way.

Show trials have great propaganda value for the government’s “war on terror,” while the public never learns the fate of those dealt with administratively in secret.

The Bush administration’s claim to the right to conduct its war on terror outside the framework of U.S. law is before the Supreme Court. If the court fails to preserve habeas corpus, the ancient right dating to the Magna Carta in 1215 will be vitiated. In Mr. Silverglate’s words, “Tyranny will be clothed in the garments of legitimacy.”

There is more than one legal road to tyranny, and prosecutors and police are making sure all roads to tyranny are open. On March 22, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that will determine whether Americans still have the right to remain silent. The Supreme Court requires police to read your Miranda rights to you, but if you choose to remain silent, Nevada prosecutors will indict you for “obstructing an officer.”

Nevada rancher Dudley Hiibel was approached by a policeman demanding his identification. Mr. Hiibel asked why. Not receiving much of an explanation, he said he didn’t want to talk. This is the case before the court. Expect a ruling in May or June.

Coercion has replaced due process and legal rights. The public’s fear of crime and terrorism permits police and prosecutors to escape their leashes. Their jobs are budget-driven and results-oriented. The more power they grab, the easier their jobs. The more high-profile cases they prosecute, the greater the naive public’s confidence in “law and order.”

Mr. Silverglate points out that, in the recent Detroit terrorist case, the government withheld exculpatory evidence indicating the testimony against the defendants was false.

Prosecutors will willingly trade the public results in the terror war for Americans’ traditional legal rights. If Americans make this Faustian bargain, they will discover their rights are forfeit as well as those of terrorist suspects.

American prisons are full of wrongfully convicted people. Prosecutors fight DNA tests of prisoners who claim innocence and resist releasing even persons whose innocence has been established. One reason is their fear of restitution. If innocent people are released, their claims would put a different light on “law and order” prosecutors, whose policy of conviction at all costs would be perceived as expensive to taxpayers.

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