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Recent
Stories
June
19, 2003
Saul
Landau
Lying, Flag Waving and Redefining
Conservative Values
June
18, 2003
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
Elaine
Cassel
Dark Star Chambers: Secret Trials,
Nameless Defendents, Veiled Threats to Defense Lawyers
Col.
Daniel Smith
Iraq's WMDs: Integrity, Ethics and
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Fagen
Ignoring the World's Bloodiest War
Rick
Fantasia and Kim Voss
Bush's Low Intensity War on Labor
Sam
Hamod
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M.
Shahid Alam
Illuminating Tom Friedman
Jon
Brown
Greens & Dems: a Reply to Publius
Steve
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Web Log, 6/18
June
17, 2003
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Elaine
Cassel
Scalia, the Rumsfeld of the Supremes
Roger Burbach
Brazil Under Lula
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Peter
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Entertainment Media 2003
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Wayne Madsen
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Larry
Kearney
Starlight
Steve
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The Bush Administration
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June
16, 2003
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Publius
Candidate Dem and Citizen Green
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Rep. John
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Julian
Samuel
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Avnery
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Bush's Lies,
Part 2
June
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Jeffrey
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June
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June
12, 2003
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June
19, 2003
Bush Plays the Racial
Profiling Card
The
"Ban" is Actually a Nefarious Smokescreen for Race
and Ethnic-based Roundups
By ELAINE CASSEL
With much fanfare and touting as a fulfillment
of a campaign promise, President Bush this week signed an Executive
Order "banning" racial profiling. Racial profiling
is defined as using racial or ethnic stereotypes to target people
for law enforcement "attention." Leaving aside for
a moment, the absurd exception that the ban creates-for national
security-(the exception that moots the rule), let me tell you
why I think the order itself is a fraud, and an evil one at that.
It's because of a document known as The
Constitution. And a particular part of that document--The Bill
of Rights-- the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which
was an afterthought to the Constitution that empowered a federal
government. According to the Bill of Rights, racial profiling
already is illegal. It is unconstitutional, in many ways, including:
The First Amendment protects the freedom
to associate with people of your choice, the freedom to worship
as you choose, the freedom to speak your mind, and to read what
you want to read. It should protect you from being suspected,
detained, arrested, and imprisoned because of who your friends
are, what religion your practice, where you go to church, what
you say about anything, and what you read.
The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect
us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and is supposed to
give us the right to be secure in our homes and persons, unless
a search warrant issues to invade our homes and bodies, the right
not to be detained unreasonably.
The Fifth Amendment gives us due process
of law-the right not to be arrested except upon probable cause,
the right against self-incrimination.
The Sixth Amendment gives us the right
to a fair trial with an impartial jury, the right to confront
our accusers, and the right to have counsel represent us.
The Fourteenth Amendment applies all
of the first 10 Amendments to the states, meaning, in this context,
state law enforcement officers. And nowhere in those amendments
will you see a "national security exception."
All of these guarantees have been violated
repeatedly, hundreds of times over, since 9/11 and since Bush's
declaration of "war" on terror. Look no further than
the report of the Inspector General of the Justice Department
to read graphic detail of the nature and extent of these constitutional
violations, all of them conducted in the interest of "national
security." John Ashcroft's response to the report was not
only to make no apology (why isn't he impeached?), but also to
say that he would do it again!
The Patriot Act circumvents the Constitution
by its breathtaking erosions of the Bill of Rights. Subsequent
Executive Orders issued by Bush and Ashcroft further abrogated
portions of the Bill of Rights, including orders relating to
conducting surveillance of attorney-client communications, the
detention of people without being charged with any crime and
without access to counsel, trials held in secret, and detention
of foreign citizens in prison camps (Guantanamo), just to name
a few.
The Bush Administration has repeatedly
acted unconstitutionally and the courts have repeatedly sanctioned
such actions, including this week, when the DC Court of Appeals
upheld the secret hearings, detention and deportation of hundreds
of people of Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim descent after 9/11.
So why the ban on racial profiling, since
Bush and Ashcroft are engaging in it wholesale and doing so with
judicial sanction? The ban is more than pure politics-pandering
to the black and other minority vote, as Bush prepares to fill
his "war chest" with hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is, in short, an order purporting to transcend, even abrogate,
the Constitution. It says, law enforcement cannot engage in "racial
profiling," except----except-to protect national security.
If you have been paying attention for
almost two years, you know that nothing is not national security.
You know that your email, your mail, your books, your conversations,
your prayers may be cause to brand you a terrorist. Because you
may be thinking things or reading things that "threaten"
national security (as this article, no doubt does, Bush and Ashcroft
would argue).
So, in one "order," at once
arrogant, bold, and evil, Bush has declared that it is lawful
to violate the Constitution when he says it is-if you fit any
racial or ethnic stereotype.
And his followers, and most un-thinking
Americans, won't know the difference. They think he did something
worth applauding.
The ACLU knows better. The order, they
say, is "little more than rhetorical smoke and mirrors that
will legitimize and encourage the use of racial profiling at
our borders, in our airports and anywhere else federal agent
can apply vague and hollow justifications of national security."
George W. Bush, whose very presence in
office is a violation of the Constitution in the grandest way-illegally
appointed by the judiciary and not elected by the people-has,
with one grand, appalling stroke, remanded the Bill of Rights.
The Patriot Act was a precursor to this atrocious act. We all
should fear what Bush (and Ashcroft) are planning as a curtain
call.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teaches
law and psychology, and writes Civil
Liberties Watch under the auspices of The City Pages.
She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Yesterday's Features
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
Elaine
Cassel
Dark Star Chambers: Secret Trials,
Nameless Defendents, Veiled Threats to Defense Lawyers
Col.
Daniel Smith
Iraq's WMDs: Integrity, Ethics and
Intelligence
Chris
Fagen
Ignoring the World's Bloodiest War
Rick
Fantasia and Kim Voss
Bush's Low Intensity War on Labor
Sam
Hamod
Theater of Deception: Bush, Sharon,
Abbas
M.
Shahid Alam
Illuminating Tom Friedman
Jon
Brown
Greens & Dems: a Reply to Publius
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/18
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