---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, May 22, 2014 at 3:36 PM
Subject: re: The Senate Foolishly Rushes In
To: "letters@nytimes.com"
From: barry levine
Date: Thu, May 22, 2014 at 3:36 PM
Subject: re: The Senate Foolishly Rushes In
To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
"The public has the right to know precisely how Mr. Barron, and the White House, made the case for killing an American citizen without due process in a court of law." That requires that we see the whole, unredacted memos. A bit of artful redaction reveals that our Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no Law" and that the bible requires that "thou shalt commit adultery".
There can be no innocent redaction here. Professor Barron must not be confirmed until we've seen the whole memos. Nothing less can satisfy.
Barry Haskell Levine
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/opinion/the-senate-foolishly-rushes-in.html
The Senate Foolishly Rushes In
The Senate is unnecessarily rushing to vote on President Obama’s nomination of David Barron for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, even though the public has yet to see documents written by Mr. Barron that have raised legitimate concernamong civil liberties advocates on both the left and the right.
Mr. Barron, a Harvard law professor, was a top official in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel when he wrote two classified memos justifying the drone strike in Yemen in 2011 that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen accused of being a terrorist.
Following lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last month ordered the government to release one of those memos to the public, and, on Tuesday, the White House relented, agreeing to release a redacted version at some point. Earlier this month it shared the memo with senators behind closed doors.
This was not enough for Senator Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, who filibustered Mr. Barron’s nomination on Wednesday because, as he said, “there is no legal precedent for killing American citizens not directly involved in combat,” and “any nominee who rubber stamps and grants such power to a president is not worthy of being placed one step away from the Supreme Court.”
The Senate rightly voted 52 to 43 to end the filibuster and advance the nomination to the floor. Every judicial nominee should receive an up-or-down vote. But the decision by Senate Democrats to charge ahead to a vote on Mr. Barron’s nomination, scheduled for Thursday, would shut the public out of the debate because it has not had a chance to consider the memo.
Much of Mr. Paul’s speech was an impassioned and articulate defense of the centrality of due process even for the most reviled. “This isn’t a debate about transparency,” he said. “This is a debate about whether or not American citizens not involved in combat are guaranteed due process.”
This debate should be about both of these things. The substance of the memos is a necessary part of any consideration of Mr. Barron’s nomination, and only their public release (assuming the government doesn’t black out all the important parts) will allow the nation to consider and weigh such critical moral and legal issues. The public has the right to know precisely how Mr. Barron, and the White House, made the case for killing an American citizen without due process in a court of law.
In other respects, Mr. Barron appears clearly qualified for the job. Some senators will vote for him in spite of (or because of) what is in the memos; some, like Mr. Paul, will vote against him. But what’s the rush in pushing through this vote? A federal judgeship is a lifetime appointment. The American people should be able to decide for themselves whether their elected representatives are making the right decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment