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The Post–9/11 Roundup of Innocents, Part 2

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In the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration constantly misrepresented how much power it was seeking over aliens. In a September 25 speech to FBI agents, Bush declared, “We’re asking Congress for the authority to hold suspected terrorists who are in the process of being deported until they’re deported.... We believe it’s a necessary tool to make America a safe place. This would, of course, be closely supervised by an immigration judge.” But everything that Bush and Ashcroft subsequently did sought to minimize, if not obliterate, judicial supervision of their roundup. On September 30, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced on CNN, “We’ve arrested and detained almost 500 people since the September 11 terrorist attacks.... We seek to hold them as suspected terrorists, while their cases are being processed on other grounds.” But early on, it was obvious that many of the people being nabbed were innocuous. Human Rights Watch reported the following cases: “Upon arriving at the Newark, New Jersey, train ...

The Post–9/11 Roundup of Innocents, Part 1

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Many Americans have been lulled into a false sense of security by the end of the George W. Bush administration. In reality, the government continues to pose grave perils to people’s rights and liberties. And it could take only one shocking incident for the government to once again show its heavy-handed ways. Prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks, the dark side of the Bush administration was barely evident. But within days after those attacks, the government seized almost any conceivable excuse to lock up anyone it chose to target. At a time when many people are lowering their guard against Leviathan, we should recall how quickly the government razed restraints on its power. The Bush administration brought the same mentality to locking up suspects after 9/11 that the Soviet Union used for the potato harvest from collective farms. It didn’t matter how many bushels of potatoes were rotten, or how many bushels were lost or pilfered along the way, or ...

Obama and Perilous Delusions of Democracy

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When Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, there was euphoria across the land and millions of people cheered in the streets of Washington. Many people are convinced that American democracy has been redeemed and that the federal government no longer poses a peril to individual rights. Since the people’s choice is now at the helm of the U.S. government, Americans are free. The Founding Fathers scorned the doctrine that the election of one person could purify or redeem an entire political system. The notion that choosing a supreme leader is the epitome of democracy is the result of philosophical doctrines that spread shortly before the American Revolution. Early Americans’ thinking on representative government was shaped by the abuses inflicted by the British Parliament. The Sugar Act of 1764 resulted in British officials’ confiscating hundreds of American ships on the basis of mere allegations that the shipowners ...

Are Democrats Better on Privacy and Surveillance?

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The Bush administration has probably illegally violated Americans’ privacy more than any presidency in at least a generation. Many Americans are understandably ready to throw out Republicans who trampled the Bill of Rights. But is the solution to elect a Democrat? Many liberals were shocked in July when putative Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama voted in favor of the ...