Naomi Wolf: Finally, Action! Ron Paul Introduces Bill to Defend Constitution!

Faryn Balyncd

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Sun Oct-21-07 05:03 AM
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Naomi Wolf: Finally, Action! Ron Paul Introduces Bill to Defend Constitution!

Edited on Sun Oct-21-07 05:43 AM by charles t

All of our Democratic presidential candidates (and none of the Republicans, save one) have now endorsed, in principle, the American Freedom Campaign to restore the constitution, and reverse the abuses of the Bush/Cheney administration.

Yet, even after the 2006 victory, only outsiders in Congress, not our Congressional leadership, have sponsored legislation to act: condemn, to impeach, to repeal and reverse the abuses.

If not now, when?

Finally, Action! Ron Paul Introduces Bill to Defend Constitution!

- - - by Naomi Wolf, Huffington Post

. . . .

There are two new organizations that are driving a grassroots push to restore the rule of law: the American Freedom Agenda was started by leaders who are conservative: Bruce Fein, who was a Reagan administration official in the Department of Justice, and others. The American Freedom Campaign was started by progressives. Both groups advance comparable 10 point legislative agendas that would stabilize democracy long enough for us to forestall the worst and regroup for more long-term reparation of the Constitution and the rule of law. Both would, if passed, protect Americans from the scary stories of abuse and recrimination I am hearing every single day -- journalists intimidated, prisoners tortured, innocent citizens spied on by the State in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Both would make it illegal for any administration to commit the kinds of crimes against America and its constitution that we have seen under this one: the innocent lawyer Brandon Mayfield's home broken into, the innocent software engineer Maher Arar kept prisoner by U.S. agents in an interrogation cell in a U.S. airport and prevented from calling his lawyer, and journalists reporting on abuses by the government threatened by the state with prosecution that could keep them in jail for a decade. Urgently it would close the horrific legal possibility for the president to call you or me an "enemy combatant" tomorrow -- JUST BECAUSE HE SAYS SO -- and lock us up in solitary confinement for years.

Passing the legislative agenda of either group would make it clear that American citizens -- in spite of a heretofore craven and compliant Congress -- refuse to stand by silently while a group of criminals systematically violates the core structure of the democracy our Founders put in place for us.

The big news is that this idea can now become a law and a law creates a reality.

On Monday, Rep. Ron Paul, the outsider Republican presidential candidate who has long upheld these values and who was an early voice warning of the grave danger to all of us of these abuses, introduced the AFA's legislative package into Congress. (The mainstream press has an irrational habit of disparaging outsider candidates -- as if corrupt money and machine endorsements equal seriousness of purpose -- even though the Founders hoped that the system they established would lead citizens, ideally those unembedded in the establishment, to offer their service to the nation.) It is the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 , and you should read it in its entirety: just as accounts of the recent abuses send chills down your spine, this beautifully argued document feels historic and has the ring of great power to correct great injustice.

. . . . . . . . . .

What does it do? . . .

"The American Freedom Agenda Act would:

- (1.) bar the use of evidence obtained through torture;

- (2.) require that federal intelligence gathering is conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA);

- (3.) create a mechanism for challenging presidential signing statements;

- (4.) repeal the Military Commissions Act, which, among other things, denies habeas corpus to certain detainees;

- (5.) prohibit kidnapping, detentions, and torture abroad;

- (6.) protect journalists who publish information received from the executive branch;

- (7.) and ensure that secret evidence is not used to designate individuals or organizations with a presence in the U.S. as foreign terrorists."

. . .

Ron Paul was the first of all the presidential candidates, red or blue, to step up in this way -- and all credit is due to him for getting there first. May the others of both parties race to follow his lead. These days, as we have seen from how reluctant some candidates have been -- even on the Democratic sign -- even to sign a mere pledge to uphold the Constitution, it takes some courage to stand fast against the assaults of this administration -- and their manipulations of the terms "patriotism" and "terror threat" -- and insist with legislation on the Founders' vision and on restoring democracy.

. . . .

The American people elected Democrats to restore American democracy, not to become complicit in its demise.

Bruce Fein, the ex-Reagan DOJ constitutional lawyer who founded the conservative counterpart to the American Freedom Campaign, was one of the disentranced Republicans who http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.forum.html">publicly campaigned for Democratic victory and takeover of Congress in 2006.

Where did Democrats get the idea that we can appeal to disillusioned Republicans (and independents) by spinelessly appeasing the GOP right wing?

In reality, the exact opposite is true.

The American people are sick of the GOP, but their patience with the Democratic leadership is not infinite.

Trying to "capture the center" by capitulating to the authoritarian right wing is a misreading of the mood of the American public, a betrayal of our values, and a prescription for defeat in 2008.