A bold statement by Senator Leahy to Attorney General Gonzales at the opening of hearings on Department of Justice Oversite:
[quote]In the 32 years since I first came to the Senate – during the era of Watergate and Vietnam – I have never seen a time when our Constitution and fundamental rights as Americans were more threatened by their own government. Just this last weekend, the President and Vice President indicated that they intended to override the will of the American people, as expressed in the most recent national elections, and ignore actions of Congress in order to escalate the war in Iraq. This Administration has circumvented express congressional prohibitions on creating databanks of information on law-abiding Americans over the last five years…
…The President has issued signing statement after signing statement declaring the law to be not what Congress passed and he has signed, but what he finds convenient. And, regrettably, the Administration has all too often refused to answer the legitimate oversight questions of the duly-elected representatives of the American people. Unfortunately, this Justice Department has been complicit in advancing these government policies which threaten our basic liberties and overstep the bounds of our Constitution. [/quote]
Leahy goes on to describe in his statement how, with the Justice Department’s complicity, the administration has contributed to the erosion of human rights and civil liberties, etc.
And more about the hearings: democracynow.org shows Leahy confronting Gonzales about the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian national siezed and extradited to Syria by US agents:
[quote]Attorney General… We knew damn well if he went to Canada, he wouldn’t be tortured. He’d be held; he’d be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he would be tortured. And it’s beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured. You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country.
It is a black mark on us. It has brought about the condemnation of some of our closest and best allies. They have made those comments both publicly and privately to the President of the United States and others. And it is easy for us to sit here comfortably in this room, knowing that we’re not going to be sent off to another country to be tortured, to treat it as though – well, Attorney General Ashcroft said, “We’ve got assurances,” though assurances from a country that we also say now, “Oh, we can’t talk to them because we can’t take their word for anything.”
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JDSmith was talking in another thread about his patriotism. Well, I feel a long-missed surge of it, as I finally see these guys taking heat for the outrages that have been going on!