Law

The Obama Administration and the Terrorist Threat

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Andrew C McCarthy, former U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, responds to a request from AG Eric Holder for his participation in a task force on detention policies–a request which McCarthy (who led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) chose to decline. Here’s why:

I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Read the whole thing.

For those who don’t remember just what a serious matter the fight against terrorism is, here’s a reminder.

The Kindness of Strangers

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Last year, a buddy and I were driving to the shooting range when we witnessed a terrible crash on the highway.

We stopped to help, of course. So did other people who were passing by. One man, confusing the steam billowing from the shattered radiator as evidence of fire, even managed to pull the door open from the twisted frame using brute strength alone. (We reached him in time, before he laid hands on the victim, and explained that it was a bad idea.)

Emergency services were called, and the cars passing by slowed down to gawk. Many people pulled over to the side of the road, asking if there was anything they could do. The response was so wide spread that there was a danger that the way would be blocked by the cars of amateur rescuers. I had to station myself next to the road, thanking everyone for their concern, but sending them on their way if they weren’t trained in rescue or medicine.

I was driving alone a few months later when another car accident occurred right in front of me, this time in a residential neighborhood. No injuries or deaths, although the damage to both vehicles was extensive.

I stopped to help, of course, and found the same situation. People driving by would ask if there was anything they could do. Those who lived near by not only phoned the authorities, but they came out of their homes and hustled down the street with first aid kits, bottled water, fire extinguishers and blankets. After determining that I didn’t need to administer first aid, my role became one of thanking the concerned and asking them to keep moving so the police and tow trucks could get through.

Are the people in Columbus, Ohio just more noble people than those living elsewhere? I find that to be impossible to believe.

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Obama’s New Nuremberg Defense

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The Nazi  defendants  at the Nuremberg trials must be down in Hell kicking themselves for not thinking of this  [h/t Instapundit]:

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said over the weekend the administration did not support prosecutions for “those who devised policy.” Aides later said he was referring to CIA superiors who ordered the interrogations, not the Justice Department officials who wrote the legal memos allowing them.Then came Obama’s comments Tuesday when a reporter asked him if he backed prosecution for those who devised the interrogation policy. He had already shot down the idea of prosecuting any of the CIA agents who carried out the interrogations on grounds they were following the law at the time.

Wow, so the standard now is that you’re off the hook for crimes against humanity if the lawyers told you it was okay? Sweet! Does that work for other crimes as well?

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Helpless Felon

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Federal law expressly bans people convicted of felonies, or who have been the subject of a Dishonorable Discharge from the military, from owning, possessing, or seeking to gain possession of firearms. If they are found guilty of any of the listed offenses, then it is another felony.

It can get even worse, though. I have heard of cases where a convicted felon has been charged with possession even though they are simply living with someone who legally owns a firearm. I’ve never bothered to look up any specific cases, so take this assertion with a grain of salt, but it does point up the very real concern that exists when felons have access to guns.

This desire to keep weapons out of the hands of felons in many states extends to less lethal defense tools as well. Felons are often banned from possessing stun guns and defensive sprays. Eugene Volokh thinks this is something that needs to be changed.

“Yet felons need self-defense tools, too. They may need self-defense tools more than the average nonfelon does: Being a felon dramatically hurts your career prospects, which means you’ll likely have to live in a poorer and therefore on average more crime-ridden part of town. And the legal bar on felons’ possessing firearms makes stun guns even more valuable to them.”

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Ignoring International Law

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There is a  bizarre  idea in leftist circles that U.S. judges should apply the standards of “International Law.” To U.S. cases. From Jonathan Adler via Instapundit:

For example, Dean Harold Koh of Yale Law School, mentioned as a possible Kerry Supreme Court nominee, has supported the idea that U.S. courts should expansively apply international legal precedents without the authorization of the president and Congress.

There is one simple reason why this is  contrary  to everything America stands for. American political theory rest on the idea that all just law arises from the formally expressed will of the people. If at some stage of its development, the people did not vote on a law, the law has no validity. Even the Constitution itself was originally voted on and by design we can vote to amend it as we wish. How, then, can a U.S. judge  legitimately  use a foreign concept for which the American voters have never cast ballots? By what legal theory are free people bound by the  decisions  of others in which they have no say?  Arguing that judges can impose foreign standards against the will of America voters simply tosses overboard the founding justification for American justice that people should only be governed by law to which they consent.  

Sadly, this is just another symptom of the American Left’s  progressive  (pun intended)  abandonment  of the American concept of governance in favor of the more authoritarian European model. Incapable of  conceiving  of their own capacity for error and utterly convinced of their own moral rectitude, they have no intellectual or moral issues with using any means necessary to impose their will upon their fellow citizens. They decide what they want and then manufacture a means of getting it. Invoking some  vague  “international standard” lets them find the legal justification they want in the entrails of whatever monster of foreign law they want to slit open on that particular day. It’s not “international law” they wish to adopt but rather the sole authority to choose to decided what “international law” means on any particular day or in any particular circumstance.

The American Left is on a long, dark road.