Free Essays on Civil Liberties

Civil Liberties What has happened to the US is a confusion of terms. Liberty has been used to supplant freedom. The terrorists' acts were facilitated by the efforts of liberty groups. People don’t want to have all those checks to get on an airplane. If checks are removed it makes for terrorists being able to get on the planes. Our privacy is being invaded. So, the government backed off, and the terrorists walked through the opening. In order for the people to feel safe our civil liberties are going to be bent. President Bush's executive order authorizing military commissions to try foreign nationals suspected of terrorism is a shocking imposition of martial law that goes well beyond any measure previously upheld by US courts. This order allows military officials within the United States to arrest aliens on mere suspicion of terrorism, without having to show probable cause; to try them entirely in secret; to use any evidence against them that military officials judge to have probative value, even if it is mere hearsay or illegally obtained; to convict them on simple preponderance of such evidence, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt; to convict them by a vote of two-thirds of the military judges, without a requirement of unanimity, much less trial by jury; and to sentence them to death, without appeal to the civilian courts. Bush officials have defended the order by citing the US Supreme Court's approval of President Roosevelt's decision in World War II to have Nazi saboteurs, captured as they sought to smuggle explosives into Florida, tried and sentenced to death by a secret military tribunal. The president bases his authority for this order only on his own previous executive order proclaiming a state of emergency. And these military courts can try not just persons legally recognized as "alien enemies," but also lawfully admitted long-time resident aliens from countries at peace with the US. They can do so,... Free Essays on Civil Liberties Free Essays on Civil Liberties Civil Liberties What has happened to the US is a confusion of terms. Liberty has been used to supplant freedom. The terrorists' acts were facilitated by the efforts of liberty groups. People don’t want to have all those checks to get on an airplane. If checks are removed it makes for terrorists being able to get on the planes. Our privacy is being invaded. So, the government backed off, and the terrorists walked through the opening. In order for the people to feel safe our civil liberties are going to be bent. President Bush's executive order authorizing military commissions to try foreign nationals suspected of terrorism is a shocking imposition of martial law that goes well beyond any measure previously upheld by US courts. This order allows military officials within the United States to arrest aliens on mere suspicion of terrorism, without having to show probable cause; to try them entirely in secret; to use any evidence against them that military officials judge to have probative value, even if it is mere hearsay or illegally obtained; to convict them on simple preponderance of such evidence, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt; to convict them by a vote of two-thirds of the military judges, without a requirement of unanimity, much less trial by jury; and to sentence them to death, without appeal to the civilian courts. Bush officials have defended the order by citing the US Supreme Court's approval of President Roosevelt's decision in World War II to have Nazi saboteurs, captured as they sought to smuggle explosives into Florida, tried and sentenced to death by a secret military tribunal. The president bases his authority for this order only on his own previous executive order proclaiming a state of emergency. And these military courts can try not just persons legally recognized as "alien enemies," but also lawfully admitted long-time resident aliens from countries at peace with the US. They can do so,...