Alito - It's the Constitution That's At Stake

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0129-26.htm

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation, in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it, that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones without warrants; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack on the Reichstag building was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained.

He then expanded his personal security service (the Stosstrupp) into a nationwide police force (the SchutzStaffel), answerable only to him, and thus with virtually unlimited powers of arrest and imprisonment.

[ananda]

1. As far as I can tell..

.. there isn't much of a Constitution left to save, but we must try.

Right now, BushInc simply rewrites the law and the Constitution
as he goes along... and he's getting away with it... so f ar.