By Mary van Tamelen
“Unless there’s justice for all, there’s no justice at all.” That was the theme of last week’s Los Altos Morning Forum meeting, held on election day. Promising to mention only one election — that of 1800 — the speaker, Bruce Neckers, of Grand Rapids, Mich., analyzed the state of civil liberties in our country today.
Neckers, former president of the State Bar of Michigan and a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers, told of instances of the erosion of liberties through the years, especially in times of crisis. In the 1800 election, President John Adams had French journalists jailed for reporting critical views about him. At the time of the Civil War, President Lincoln did away with habeas corpus. During World War I, Germans were incarcerated. Japanese citizens met the same fate during World War II. Those were all actions taken in violation of the Bill of Rights. And history has not been kind to those presidents for those actions. “Using race has never served politicians well,” Neckers declared.
Yet critical times have often led to drastic measures. As President George W. Bush announced in September 2001, “Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom … now depends on us.”
The most important document in this country is the Bill of Rights, according to Neckers. Yet those rights, so basic to the United States, have been steadily abused since 9/11.
Thousands have been incarcerated. Courts are held in secret. The president makes decisions about whether prisoners will face civil or military courts. Prisoners remain in custody without charges, suffer physical and mental abuse, and have no access to lawyers. The Patriot Act was passed overwhelmingly, even though most legislators hadn’t read it. And the TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program of securing the assistance of legitimate workers to snoop and spy and report to the government was almost enacted, until Congress derailed it.
The history of the Bill of Rights goes back to the Magna Carta and the writings of John Locke and Montesquieu. The founders of this country strongly objected to arbitrary government. George Mason originally had drafted the Virginia Bill of Rights, but he walked out of the Constitutional Convention when it wasn’t made part of the Constitution. Only through the efforts of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were the first 10 amendments to the Constitution ratified in 1791.
When Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, the times were such that it applied only to white men of substance in Virginia. Women, poor and blacks were not included. Through the years, and gradually, the rights expanded to include all people.
Yet today, under John Ashcroft, this country is consistently ignoring due process of law. Foreigners are targeted on the basis of nationality and race. There are conscious attempts to scare both Congress and the populace; and further inroads into civil liberties are being proposed all the time. Prosecutors are being told to do away with plea bargaining. The attorney general is pushing for more death penalties. There is no check on the powers of the Patriot Act, even as Ashcroft urges for its expansion, using the fear of “compromising national security.”
Neckers described exactly how specific amendments to the Constitution have been eroded. This erosion has a history older than the Patriot Act. Wartime presidents attempt to expand their powers and the military tends to usurp judicial powers. The war on drugs — which didn’t work — was a basis for the Patriot Act. Objections to the act and to many of Ashcroft’s action, are arising from both the left and the right. Phyllis Schaffly and the American Civil Liberties Union are united in opposition.
Neckers’ greatest fear is that the government is undermining the authority of the justice system. Although the judicial system is not perfect, it does work. And the government, by showing lack of faith in its courts, is losing its moral authority.
