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Feb. 7th, 2003 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaSomeone at the New York Sun has an astoundingly poor grasp of the Constitution (link via Tapped.) In regard to the anti-war protests scheduled for February 15th, the Sun recommends that
The word "treason" sure gets bandied about an awful lot in modern American discourse. (Take a look - or rather, don't - at Ann Coulter's new book.) The trouble with most of these arguments is that the Constitution is extremely specific about what constitutes treason: only levying war against the United States, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. The Sun's claim is that Saddam Hussein is "comforted" by the existence of the American anti-war movement. Isn't that neat? I bet that Kim Jong Il is "comforted" by Bush's lack of inclination to invade North Korea - shouldn't the Sun be calling for a treason prosecution there? Once you start down that road, there won't ever be any need to stop... after all, the United States has a lot of "enemies," if you define that term nebulously enough, and almost any action that isn't overtly hostile could be said to produce some sort of emotion of "comfort."
Fortunately, the law sees the matter differently. Two centuries of Supreme Court decisions make it clear that "treason requires proof of an overt act, in order to forestall using the treason charge against unpopular speech or publication in the course of domestic political controversy." All this talk of treason truly amounts to is the further poisoning and uglification of public discourse.
Edited to add: Another, less technical, discussion of treason law can be found here.
So the New York City police could do worse, in the end, than to allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each participant, with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution. Thus fully respecting not just some, but all of the constitutional principles at stake.
The word "treason" sure gets bandied about an awful lot in modern American discourse. (Take a look - or rather, don't - at Ann Coulter's new book.) The trouble with most of these arguments is that the Constitution is extremely specific about what constitutes treason: only levying war against the United States, or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. The Sun's claim is that Saddam Hussein is "comforted" by the existence of the American anti-war movement. Isn't that neat? I bet that Kim Jong Il is "comforted" by Bush's lack of inclination to invade North Korea - shouldn't the Sun be calling for a treason prosecution there? Once you start down that road, there won't ever be any need to stop... after all, the United States has a lot of "enemies," if you define that term nebulously enough, and almost any action that isn't overtly hostile could be said to produce some sort of emotion of "comfort."
Fortunately, the law sees the matter differently. Two centuries of Supreme Court decisions make it clear that "treason requires proof of an overt act, in order to forestall using the treason charge against unpopular speech or publication in the course of domestic political controversy." All this talk of treason truly amounts to is the further poisoning and uglification of public discourse.
Edited to add: Another, less technical, discussion of treason law can be found here.
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Date: 2003-02-07 08:16 pm (UTC)This "providing of material support" was "attending a training camp", which strikes me as an odd form of 'material support'. Lending your car to a terrorist to go grocery shopping, that I could see. Receiving training from one, well, that I *can't* see.
I assume the government realized that was pretty weak too, so they bolstered the case by pointing out that, while at the training camp, they did the same things anyone will do at a training camp... stood watches, etc.. *THIS* is the material support, they (seem to) claim. Similarly, if you hitched a ride with a terrorist, and threw in a few bucks for gas, they could get you using the same logic.
To use your example of a person in WWII, it'd be like arresting someone for having signed up with the German military prior to the US entry into WWII, having gone through basic training, but not (as far as anyone's willing to reveal) having done anything past that; for all we know, they were discharged after basic. Now, during WWII, they're told that having signed up for the German military at another time constitutes "providing material support to an enemy of the US"... after all, during basic training, they performed tasks that other recruits did, like KP, guard duty, etc..
If this is the best they can get, I'd rather they do the same thing they did with Padilla, and declare them material witnesses, and then enemy combatants. If they can reliably place them at the training camp, it sounds like they have a better case to hold them as material witnesses than they had against Padilla.
(As a side note: I just realized that I don't know *when* they're said to have attended the training camp. I believed - and I'm not sure why, if I read it, or just assumed it - that it occurred prior to 9/11/2001. If they attended it afterwards, the case for holding them for providing support is much stronger.)