Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of Obama Presidency, by jouralist Daniel Klaidman, partly explains how the Obama administration has dashed
civil libertarians" expectations.
Neier, like most
civil libertarians is nonplussed; it's not his job to worry about such inconveniences.
He was a liberal Democrat and New Dealer/Fair Dealer, grassroots political activist,
civil libertarian, and a Jew.
Catching the opposition napping, one month before the beginning of the legislative session in January, a tight-knit coalition of groups, including gay,
civil libertarian, and disability rights advocates, began meeting privately to strategize.
The passing of the great
civil libertarian and legal scholar Thomas Emerson, in this season when the issues that he championed are much discussed, recalls a little history.
Among the topics he explores are
civil libertarian responses to World War II, the emergence of the Co-operative Committee on Japanese Canadians, tensions between communist and non-communist
civil libertarians revealed in the Gouzenko affair (a 1945-6 Soviet espionage case), communist and non-communist co-operation in overturning the Padlock Law (used to close "subversive" newspapers), the role of the Jewish Labour Committee in establishing a network of groups committed to the defense of ethnic equality, and the aforementioned passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights.
We asked Doctorow, a devout
civil libertarian, to recommend three political books for young adults:
"In Britain it is 'reasonable suspicion,' here it's 'probable cause'--huge difference." Then he asked his guest, Larry Walters, an attorney and
civil libertarian, "Why shouldn't we have reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause," like the British do?
"The establishment of an office to pump federal money into religious charities has brought a uniform reaction from across the spectrum of churches and
civil libertarian organizations, left to right.
Reviewing Attorney General John Ashcroft's guidelines for terrorism investigations,
civil libertarian Nat Hentoff warns that they "could be part of the new Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, which envisions the nabbing of 'pre-criminals."' In Minority Report, an elite FBI "pre-crime".
Reinhardt is positively generous in his assessment of Clinton compared to the columnist and
civil libertarian Nat Hentoff.
The sheer audacity of the belief that anything the majority wants in a democracy is okay; the presumption to rights of power and control embodied in the idea that the majority can repeal and infringe upon the rights of minorities; the assumption of absolute moral infallibility--it's more than any
civil libertarian or First Amendment advocate should be required to endure.