Civil Liberties & Privacy

Bush’s Contempt for Trial by Jury

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

BOWING TO PUBLIC PRESSURE, the Bush administration has modified its rules for the trials of suspected terrorists captured abroad. Included among the new rules are: (1) the accused will be presumed innocent rather than guilty; (2) the government will be required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; (3) the defendant will have the right to have an attorney ...

Civil Liberty and the State: The Writ of Habeas Corpus

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2002

LIMITING THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT has been one of the leading struggles in the history of mankind. Through most of man’s time on earth, governments have presumed to rule, command, order, and threaten multitudes of human beings — to make the mass of humanity bend to the will of their political masters. The political rulers have often considered themselves to ...

Andrea Yates: Person or Nonperson?

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2002

Andrea Yates has been convicted of murder. But the debate over the insanity plea will continue. Yates admitted to methodically drowning her five young children in a bathtub. Yet she claimed that mental illness made her do it and she didn’t know right from wrong. This is nothing but a modern, secular version of ...

The State Tells Us Where We Can and Cannot Eat

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002

An Amish farm has come under attack from the paternalistic welfare state in Pennsylvania. According to a story in the New York Times, many Amish families are offering hungry tourists a home-cooked meal in return for a donation. This has put both the State Bureau of Food Safety as well as the ...

The Right to Confront and Cross-Examine Witnesses

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2002

Included among the Bush administration’s new rules for the trials of suspected terrorists captured abroad is the right of the accused (or his attorney) to confront and cross-examine witnesses, a right guaranteed to Americans in criminal prosecutions by the Sixth Amendment. But the Bush administration is being disingenuous in the ...

The Bill of Rights at Work

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 15, 2002

The unfolding developments in the John Walker Lindh case and the Guantanamo "detainees" situation reflect why Americans should be so grateful to our early ancestors for demanding the first ten amendments to the Constitution as a condition of adopting the Constitution. Recall that there was tremendous resistance among the several states to the adoption of the ...

Protecting Our Way of Life?

by Sheldon Richman January 10, 2002

Even when responding to a monstrous and unjustifiable provocation such as September 11, the U.S. government threatens our liberty. We have much to fear from the power in Washington. At least Osama bin Laden never says he has our interests at heart. We can't be lulled into trusting him. Not so with the U.S. government. It ...

Does Endorsement of Military Tribunals Insult Bush?

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2002

As FFF friends and supporters know, we have taken a firm stand against President Bush's military tribunals. See, for example, "Military Tribunals: Another Step Away from Our Principles" by Jacob G. Hornberger and "Emergencies, Military Tribunals, and the Constitution" by Jacob G. Hornberger. In a recent conversation I had with Sheldon Richman, he ...

Military Tribunals: Another Step Away from Our Principles

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 29, 2001

President Bush's plan to form military tribunals to punish suspected terrorists is one more step away from the civilized principles of constitutional government and the rule of law that have long distinguished the United States from other nations in history. The president's tribunals would apply to two classes of accused terrorists: those captured as part of ...

A Victory for Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 22, 2001

Kudos to President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft for ultimately deciding to comply with the Constitution in the U.S. government's prosecution of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, who is accused of having participated in the September 11 attacks. Bush and Ashcroft had threatened to try Moussaoui before a secret military tribunal whose Star Chamber and ...

The Implications of Forfeiting Our Freedoms Today

by Richard M. Ebeling December 20, 2001

We are witnessing in America today the consequences from a weakened appreciation of the purposes and importance of this constitutional order under the emotional shock of a terrible and evil act on September 11, 2001. Our fear and anger is clouding our reason, a reason that should guide us to first think whether the individual ...

The White Rose: Dissent and Justice in Wartime Germany

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 3, 2001

Justice was swift in the case of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their best friend, Christoph Probst. Only four days after they were arrested and accused of treason in the midst of World War II, they were put on trial before the special "People’s Court" that the Nazi regime had established in 1934, during the ...