LIBERTY VS. SECURITY: Justice's new image: loss of individual rights, elevation of president above the law, America no longer beacon for freedom

STLtoday.com - Printer friendly - LIBERTY VS. SECURITY: Justice's new image: "Sunday, Dec. 19 2004

First of three editorials ONE OF THE CASUALTIES of the war on terrorism was the American ideal of justice. Much of that damage was inflicted by two men: Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and his proposed successor, White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. The confirmation hearings for Mr. Gonzales next month will give the U.S. Senate and the nation an opportunity to assess the war on terrorism and the damage it has done to the liberties we cherish.

Three ideas about justice are fundamentally American: Every person is born with rights the government cannot take away unfairly; no one, not even the president, is above the law; America is a beacon for freedom and the rule of law throughout the world.
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As President George W. Bush's two most important legal strategists in the war on terrorism, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Ashcroft have compromised and weakened these bedrock rights.
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In 2003, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Ashcroft engineered the legal defense of Mr. Bush's imperial claim that he could unilaterally classify citizens as "enemy combatants" and hold them without trial. Mr. Ashcroft also instructed FBI agents to spy on antiwar rallies for possible links to terrorism.

Due process, jury trials, open court proceedings, humane treatment of prisoners, international norms of justice, the right to protest - all these were undermined with breathtaking hubris.

But perhaps the most disturbing assumption of the Bush administration's legal response to 9/11 was the elevation of the powers of the president beyond the reach of the other branches of government. ...