Tonight during the CNN National Security debate (11/22/2011), the candidates gave their input about discarding constitutional rights for those who have been accused of domestic terror.
Gingrich, Bachmann, and Romney all are of the notion that terrorism is a special crime that the constitution need not apply to. They think that people accused of domestic terrorism should not be afforded rights whatsoever. They keep mentioning a division of the rule of law. Essentially Due Process would be dead as we know it for someone accused of domestic terrorism, according to these Fascists.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsQEJQyifsI[/ame]
First Gingrich and Paul had their say. Newt Gingrich stresses that we should remain in fear for the rest of our lives. He wants a stronger Patriot Act, and system of justice that is not encumbered by the constitution.
Ron Paul defends the Bill of Rights and says that liberty NEVER needs to be sacrificed to provide real security. He calls Gingrich out on supporting a Police State.Then Michele Bachmann chimed in. She supports the Patriot Act because of the existence of cell phones. She seems upset that the Underwear Bomber was read Miranda rights. She also believes that accused domestic terrorists should not be afforded due process. Lastly, Mitt Romney agreed with Gingrich. In his mind there is a clear distinction between crime and terror, and therefore we can obey the constitution for one and not the other. He advocates a "very different form of law" if you are accused of terrorism.
Gingrich, Bachmann, and Romney all are of the notion that terrorism is a special crime that the constitution need not apply to. They think that people accused of domestic terrorism should not be afforded rights whatsoever. They keep mentioning a division of the rule of law. Essentially Due Process would be dead as we know it for someone accused of domestic terrorism, according to these Fascists.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsQEJQyifsI[/ame]
First Gingrich and Paul had their say. Newt Gingrich stresses that we should remain in fear for the rest of our lives. He wants a stronger Patriot Act, and system of justice that is not encumbered by the constitution.
Ron Paul defends the Bill of Rights and says that liberty NEVER needs to be sacrificed to provide real security. He calls Gingrich out on supporting a Police State.
ED MEESE III, (Fmr. U.S. Attorney General): At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United states have been thwarted since 9/11. Tools like the Patriot Act have been instrumental in finding and stopping terrorists. Shouldn't we have a long range extension of the investigative powers contained in that act, so that our law enforcement officers can have the tools that they need?
GINGRICH: Well I think that Attorney General Meese has raised a key point in that key distinctions the American people to recognize is the difference between National Security requirements, and criminal law requirements. I think its desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty, if its a matter of criminal law. But if you're trying to find somebody who may have a nuclear weapon that they're trying to bring into an American city, I think you wanna use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence. The Patriot Act has clearly been a key part of that. And I think that looking at it carefully and extending it and building an honest understanding that all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives. This is not gonna end in the short run. And we need to be prepared to protect ourselves from those who, if they could, would not just kill us individually, but would take out entire cities.
BLITZER: So Speaker, just to clarify, you would not change the Patriot Act?
GINGRICH: No I would not change it. I'm not aware of any specific change it needs. And I'd look at strengthening it, because I think the dangers are literally that grave. And again, I've spent years studying this stuff. You start thinking about one nuclear weapon in one American city, and the scale of loss of life, and you ask yourself, "What should the president be capable of doing to stop that?" And you come up with a very different answer. Again, very sharp division. Criminal law, the government should be frankly on defense and you're innocent until be proven guilty. National security, the government should have many more tools in order to save our lives.
BLITZER: Congressman Paul, I suspect you disagree.
PAUL: I do. I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic, because it undermines our liberty. I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh was a vicious terrorist. He was arrested. Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally. Its a crime and we dealt with it rather well with Timothy McVeigh. But why I really fear it, is we have drifted into a condition that we were warned against, because our early founders were very clear. They said, "Don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security." Today, it seems to easy that our government and our Congress are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill Of Rights!
GINGRICH: Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That's the whole point. Timothy McVeigh killed a lot of Americans. I don't want a law that says, "After we lose a major American city, we're sure going to come and find you." I want a law that says, "You try to take out an American city, we're going stop you."
PAUL: This is like saying that we need a policeman in every house, a camera in every house, because we want to prevent child-beating and wife-beating. You can prevent crimes by becoming a Police State. So if you advocate the Police State, yes you can have safety and security. And you MIGHT prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people, and against our freedoms, and we throw out so much of what our revolution was fought for. So don't do it so carelessly.
BACHMANN: We have to realize we are in a very different war, with very different techniques that are used for that war, and very different bad actors than we've had before. And the terrorists' motivations are very different. We can't forget that technology is completely different. When we were looking at prior laws, phones were wired into walls. That's not how it works any more. Today we deal with wireless functions. And we have to completely change the way we go about investigating. This is one thing we know about Barack Obama. He has essentially handed over our interrogation of terrorists to the ACLU. He's outsourced it to them. Our CIA has no ability to have any form of interrogation for terrorists. When the bomber, the attempted bomber over Detroit, the underwear bomber was intercepted, he was given Miranda warnings within 45 minutes. He was not an American citizen. We don't give Miranda warnings to terrorists and we don't read them their rights. They don't have rights.
ROMNEY: Lets come back to the issue that seems to be so confusing here. Congressman Paul talked about crime. Newt Gingrich is right. There are different categories here. There is crime, and there are rights that are afforded to American citizens, under our constitution, and those who are accused of crime. Then there is war, and the tool of war being used today in America and around the world is terror. There is a different body of law that relates to war. And for those that understand the difference between the two, they recognize that we need tools when war is waged domestically to assure that as President of the United States, you can fulfill your first responsibility, which is to protect the life, liberty, and property of American citizens, and defend them from foes domestic and foreign. And that means yes, we'll use the constitution and criminal law for those people who commit crimes. But those who commit war, and attack the United States, and pursue treason of various kinds, we will use instead a very different form of law, which is the law that is afforded to those who are fighting America.