[Special K]

Over the past ten years, it has become increasingly evident to me that the Constitution is no longer very relevant in the lives of mainstream Americans. Theoretically, it is the basic to the human rights of every American citizen but realistically, it cannot be enforced. With ordinary Americans being arrested and jailed, sometimes for months and years at a time, how can anyone argue that the their rights are being upheld? The legal system is run by attorneys and judges who know full well that the right to a speedy trial should be afforded to every citizen, Unfortunately, jail time is used as a way to force people to plead guilty to a lesser sentence, regardless of guilt or innocence. And what about organizations like ALEC, that write bills that adversely affect the people of this country. Then these bills are presented to “our elected officials” to be signed into law such as the disastrous Stand Your Ground law. How about Barack Obama’s “kill list” where American citizens can be killed without charge or the opportunity too face their accusers to prove their innocence. Don’t forget civil forfeiture where your belongings can be confiscated without charge, solely based on suspicion. We’re living in the modern day “wild west” where anything goes.

[Special K]

The U.S. lost a great civil and human rights attorney, Michael Ratner. He died yesterday. He was a member of the Center for Constitutional Rights and president of the National Lawyers Guild. He fought vigorously for the rights of the marginalized, underclass and the politically outcast. His work spanned both domestically and internationally. What a loss for this country and this world.

[Special K]

Correction: Michael Ratner was the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

[Special K]

I listened to WBAI this morning and they played an audio clip of a conversation between a police officer and a reporter. Apparently, a peaceful protest was taking place, somewhere here in the city, yesterday. A police car arrived on the scene and two officers exited their police car. One of the officers immediately started video recording the protest. When a WBAI reporter saw the officer recording the protest, he asked the officer what provoked him to do so. The officer replied that he was exercising his first amendment right to record the protest. The reporter and the officer go back and forth for a couple of minutes about why the officer was recording the protest. The officer kept insisting that he was exercising his first amendment right. Then the reporter stated, that as an officer who is on active duty, the first amendment doesn’t apply because he is operating on behalf of the police department. The police department has administrative rules that dictate the conditions in which recording protests can occur. One of these conditions is the suspicion of terrorist activities. The officer maintained that he was within his first amendment right to record the protest. He instructed the reporter to file for a freedom of information act to gain access to any data that was recorded.
ACLU attorney, Norman Siegel, was thereafter interviewed about the interaction between the officer and reporter. Mr. Siegel stated that it was disturbing that the officer was misinformed about the recording of the protest, as well as his misapplication of his first amendment rights. As per Mr. Siegel, the situation points to a lack of proper training in the police department, in reference to recording of peaceful protests and the officer’s role as agent of the police department. Mr. Siegel will be filing a complaint with the police department and mayor’s office, in regards to this situation.
This American Government course has really proven itself to relevant to daily life. Who knew?!

[Special K]

Mr. Siegel concluded, based on the clip of the peaceful protest, that the officer had no grounds to use the exception to policy to record protest by the police department. Ostensibly, it is police department regulation NOT to record peaceful protests. HMMM…

[Special K]

I have three questions:
Does an executive order supersede the Constitution, ever? Is there any circumstance which would allow, legally, foreign troops to enter the U.S.? How would the Constitution address the constant state of emergency that the U.S. is in (and has been in) since 9/11/01?

[Benjamin F. Alexander]

1. Nothing is ever supposed to supersede the Constitution, but it’s certainly possible for the president to issue an executive order that others in the government regard as violating the Constitution, in which case there could be a challenge in federal court. If Trump becomes president, you may well see some examples of that. (At the moment, the only challenges to Obama’s executive orders that I can think of involve clashes with acts of Congress, as over immigration.)

2. I can’t imagine the U.S. inviting foreign troops in the U.S., unless we’re talking about being here to attend a conference or a ceremony or a joint training exercise. Anything else would seem like an invasion. (Governments of countries with less viable forces than the U.S. sometimes invite peacekeeping forces in, but I don’t see that happening here.)

3. Most of what goes on in the post-9/11 era, in terms of security at airports, train stations, bridges and tunnels, etc., seems to me what’s to be expected. The Constitution says in the Preamble that the purpose of the government is to provide for the common defense and ensure domestic tranquility, and other clauses empower Congress to create military forces and imply that states will have police forces. The real question, I think, is whether this or that specific measure of security violates individual liberties in a constitutionally intolerable manner, and case by case, the answer to that is sometimes clearly yes. For example, there are certainly kinds of body searches that people have had to go through at airports that I can’t fathom being considered constitutional, even in the context of air travel being a privilege rather than a right, and yet they happen. (Example: Click here.)

[Special K]

Senator Chuck Schumer is once again pushing for a national id card and a biometric social security card. It seems that it will become a reality since the POTUS is also advocating for the same thing although he’s working the “cracking down on illegal immigrant” angle. The movie “Minority Report” is quickly approaching in full effect. What is the Constitutionality of the government requiring its citizens to carry a national security card and a biometric social security card? Is it an invasion of privacy for government officials to access personal data such as medical profiles, without our permission?

In 1999, I bought a movie called “The Siege” with Denzel Washington. This movie struck a chord with me since I happen to be a Muslim. Fast forward to 2016, Trump is calling for non- entry of Syrian Muslims into the U.S and a database for U. S. Muslims. Now, ” The Siege” seems within the realm of possibility. Internment camps for the Japanese during W.W.2 happened so who’s to say that it can’t happen again. The vibe has already been put out by the making of that movie and now Trump is fanning the flames. What legal recourse do American citizens have against being round up and put into internment camps?

American citizens are, and have been, losing jobs to foreigners with H1B1 visas in many fields. These workers are willing to work for much less than the American citizen. This also contributes to the destruction of the middle class. What does that spell out for the college graduates, who are saddled with student loans, who are not only competing with each other but also foreign labor?

[Special K]

Texas has suspended the licenses of over a million of its citizens due to excessive fines levied upon them. These fines are a result of Texans receiving traffic tickets which if not paid within 30 days, accrues additional fees. That practice has been going on in New York for years. The difference between Texas and New York is Texas suspended their citizens’ licenses. In New York, you get a boot put on your car. Aren’t these additional fines that are being levied upon citizens unconstitutional?

One of CUNY’s students received a $4 million grant to create a database to track political extremists. Is it just me or is this a scary proposition. Who sets the parameters for such a database? How does one clear themselves of such a label as political extremist? Being labeled as a political extremist is a BIG DEAL. It’s something to think about.

[Benjamin F. Alexander]

I had to do some googling to find both what “Minority Report” and Schumer’s proposal are, and it seems to me, “Minority Report” is about the supernatural (psychics predicting crimes about to happen) while what Schumer is talking about is just making Social Security cards more verifiable. (Here’s the link I looked at for Schumer.) What I see happening is that any time politicians propose easing up the laws affecting undocumented immigrants, they need to make a concession to conservative critics by agreeing to a plan that will lock the doors tighter to future illegal immigration.

I’m not under the impression that there’s serious discussing of requiring everybody to have a stored medical history that the government can access, as you allude to, though I am certainly aware of the theory.

[Benjamin F. Alexander]

I’m not sure how much of a constitutional issue there is with drivers’ licenses and cars, since it’s always been my understanding that (1) driving is legally considered a privilege rather than a right, and (2) such matters have customarily been left to states. But if one wanted to challenge the actions of Texas and New York in the federal courts, I think the way to go would be to take the life/liberty/property/due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and make use of all the expansions of the definition of liberty that have accrued, including of course the marital freedom cases from Loving (1967) to Obergefell (2015).

Yes, I do think there is the potential for serious freedom issues to be raised by a database to track political extremists, since the word “extremist” itself has always had a somewhat fluid definition. If you go back to the 1950s, the so-called McCarthy era, back then it could mean just Soviet spies and saboteurs, or it could be expanded to mean those who identified with the Communist Party and Marxist theory ideologically, or it could be expanded to mean New Deal liberals who favored a stronger role for government in social welfare. Applying it to the president involves loads of speculation, especially where the news headline is just that a grant has been awarded, but of course those issues exist. And any time I find myself about to say that something that happened 50 years from now would be less likely to happen now, I just remind myself that a year ago I didn’t think Donald Trump stood a chance of getting the Republican nomination either.

About the “registry for Muslims” idea and all that goes with that: on the face of it, it’s clearly unconstitutional, and there’s a huge difference between what a presidential candidate promises to do and what Congress and federal courts will actually go along with. That said, if we get a significant terrorist attack on American soil close to when the election is coming up, the danger of all of these things happening (starting with Trump winning the election) will be greater. It also needs to be noted that the Supreme Court historically has allowed more latitude for breaches of the Bill of Rights in tie of national emergency than otherwise, an example being with the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II.

[Special K]

is the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order. Ex. 10995 within the bounds of the Constitution? This gives the government the right to confiscate water, food, armaments, land, etc in case of a national defense emergency. This orders supposedly expands presidential powers during both times of war and peace. This order is an updated version of the Defense Production Act of 1950 and has been update by both Clinton and Bush. Many people, particularly those on the right, believe that this order grants the government the ability to confiscate the supplies of ordinary citizens. So what are the facts?

[Benjamin F. Alexander]

From what I can gather, I think there’s some paranoia there. One thing that needs to be remembered is that the far right–not so much in the government as in the general population–has been seizing upon every excuse to claim that President Obama wants to be a dictator. You’re never going to find a country that doesn’t give its government some kind of extraordinary authority in time of imminent national war crisis, but I don’t see anything more than that going on.

[Special K]

A Las Vegas Judge ordered that a deputy public defender be handcuffed and seated next to inmates as punishment for her not displaying the proper court room etiquette. This was his way of teaching her a lesson for attempting to vigorously defend her client. Judge Conrad Hafen told Deputy Public Defender Zohra Bakhtary to “be quiet” as she tried to defend her client from being jailed, for six mos., after he violated his probation. According to the court transcript, not only did the judge repeatedly interrupt the public defender as she was speaking, he repeatedly referred to her by her first name. Bakhtary’s client was sentenced to six months in prison.
Bakharty has never exhibited any unprofessional behavior in the three years she had joined the public defender’s office. According to Bakharty, she was zealously defending her client and it was the Court’s constitutional duty to listen to arguments and not silence them. Bakharty’s colleagues denounces the judge’s behavior to the news media. Also, they have called for sanctions against Judge Hafen, who they have stated, has a complete disregard for the law. The attys also cited a case where Judge Hafen wouldn’t allow a man more time to obtain an atty . Once the man attempted to defend himself, the judge became irritated and repeatedly interrupted the man as he spoke. The judge then ordered the man to be jailed for contempt of court for six months. The judge later revise the contempt oder and released the man.

In a separate incident, a D.C. judge order that an attorney of color like Bakharty, be “searched, shackled and detained” for attempting to inform the judge that her client was indigent. This particular judge was reprimanded for behavior that was considered to be grossly out of line.
Question: Why isn’t here any judicial supervisory oversight for active judges so that they can be held to account for abuse of authority? What recourse do attorneys and civilians have to remedy their situations when facing such abuse?

[Special K]

Would not allowing, or delaying, the Florida shooter to legally purchase his gun have conflicted with his 2nd amendment right? Mr. Mateen, the shooter, was interviewed by the FBI for being an associate of a suicide bomber. He had a history of domestic violence and already had access to guns through his job. His ex-wife has been described as being bipolar and mentally unstable. Why is it that he wasn’t in a database where any attempt to legally purchase a gun would have automatically put his gun license on hold or suspension, pending further investigation.
Is it unreasonable that a person with this type of background not be able to purchase automatic weapons,legally, pending further investigation. There should be a waiting period of, at least, ten to thirty days before the purchase of such a weapon. Seriously, there are people who are placed on no-fly lists simply because of the sound of their names, their political affiliations, etc. A person who is on the line at the airport, with the intention of taking a flight, can be: taken off of the line,physically searched, detained, subjected to further searches of his/her personal body as well as personal possessions, interrogation and may be arrested.
Would it then be unreasonable to ask, or mandate, that a person who is red-flagged as having a troubled past to submit to a waiting period before purchasing an automatic weapon?