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FFF Email Update — February 6, 2012

REMINDER: The Jacob Hornberger Show Saturdays at 7-7:30 pm EST. Listen and watch live on the Internet: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-future-of-freedom-foundation (However, no show this Saturday, January 21.)

Monday, February 6, 2012

Born-Again Anti-Dictatorship in Syria
by Jacob G. Hornberger

When did the U.S. government get religion with respect to Syria’s dictatorship? Sure, right now they’re protesting the Syrian dictatorship’s brutal suppression of a rebellion within the country. They’re issuing all sorts of demands to Syria’s dictator to cease his violence and leave office. Just this past week, they sought to secure some sort of anti-Syrian resolution within the United Nations, without success.

But unfortunately the U.S. government hasn’t always felt that way about the Syrian dictatorship. They once embraced it precisely for its brutality.

I’m referring to the infamous case of Mahar Arar, a Canadian citizen who was changing planes at Dulles airport in Virginia on his return to Canada after a trip overseas. U.S. officials, convinced that he was a terrorist, took him into custody for interrogation. His answers didn’t satisfy them.

So, what did those U.S. officials do? Did they charge him with terrorism? Did they take him before a federal magistrate? Did they secure a federal grand-jury indictment against him? Did they prosecute him in federal court for some terrorist offense? Did they use the procedures set forth under U.S. law, including the Constitution?

Absolutely not. They rejected all those procedures and instead contacted unidentified people within the Syrian government. Why Syria? Because Syria was (and is) a brutal dictatorship, one that believed in torturing people. U.S. officials didn’t want to torture Arar themselves because it’s illegal for Americans to torture people. So, they figured that they’d get Syria to do the torturing for them. In that way, they could exclaim, “We knew that Syria was a brutal dictatorship , one that enthusiastically tortures people, but the last thing we thought when we sent Arar to Syria was that they would torture him. We’re shocked to learn that he got tortured there.”

But then why did they send him to Syria instead of Canada, where he lived. After all, he was a Canadian citizen. That’s where he was returning from his overseas trip.

Before he became a Canadian citizen, Arar had been a Syrian citizen. But Syria takes the position that once a Syrian citizen, always a Syrian citizen. Thus, U.S. officials claimed that they were just deporting him to his country of origin, even though they knew that he was now a Canadian citizen.

Which agency was in charge of Arar’s rendition to Syria? You guessed it! The CIA, known far and wide for its kidnapping/rendition/torture program. Don’t forget, for example, those CIA agents who were indicted and convicted of felonies in Italy after they kidnapped and renditioned a man to Egypt for the purpose of torture.

Egypt? Yes, the military dictatorship in Egypt — the one that has been brutalizing, incarcerating without trial, torturing, and executing Egyptians for some 30 years, with the full support of the U.S. government. What type of support? Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and weaponry. The U.S. government is still supporting Egypt’s brutal military dictatorship today, notwithstanding its protests against the brutal dictatorship in Syria.

So, how did the torture agreement with Syria regarding Arar get negotiated? Who struck the deal on both sides? Was it in writing? Did President George W. Bush sign off on it or did the CIA do this on its own? Does the CIA have the authority to do this type of thing on its own?

We don’t know the answers to any of these questions because we’re not permitted to know them. For one thing, the U.S. mainstream press has never asked these questions of U.S. officials because they know that U.S. officials don’t want them asked. National security is at stake, after all. And Congress has also refused to hold hearings at which they could subpoena the CIA to produce the agents who could testify who negotiated and struck the deal, what the terms of the deal were, and whether President Bush signed off on them.

Of course, the president during that time was George W. Bush, whose position was “We don’t talk to Syria,” notwithstanding the fact that someone obviously was talking to Syria.

Arar was tortured for one year in Syria and finally released, whereupon he returned to Canada. It turned out that he wasn’t a terrorist after all. Despite the fact that U.S. officials were convinced that he was a terrorist, it turns out that he was innocent. The Canadian government, which played a role in the U.S. government’s appalling conduct, apologized to Arar and gave him a financial settlement.

Not so with the U.S. government. Arar sued U.S. officials for what they did to him. But the federal courts denied him any relief once U.S. officials cited the magic term: national security. Why, the courts didn’t even require the government to reconcile its reliance on the magic term (which isn’t even found in the Constitution) with its obviously fake and false claim that it was just innocently deporting Arar to his country of origin.

It’s interesting that the U.S. government is expressing a born-again fervor against Syria’s dictatorship. But one has to ask: Is this simply because U.S. officials see an opportunity to install another dictatorship in its stead, one that will be even more willing to do the U.S. government’s bidding than the current Syrian regime?

P.S. We kick off our College Civil Liberties Tour this evening at Columbia University. If you’re in the area, please join us. If not, join us online in a live-stream of the event.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Our College Civil Liberties Lecture Tour Kicks Off Monday
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Next week we kick off our College Civil Liberties tour! We start Monday at Columbia University in New York City, then Indiana and Purdue universities on Tuesday, then Middle Tennessee State University on Wednesday, and wrapping up at Ohio State University on Thursday.

The theme of the programs is: “The War on Terrorism, the Constitution, and Civil Liberties.”

Spread the word: The programs will be live-streamed!

The Young Americans for Liberty are organizing the event on each of the campuses.

The three panelists are Glenn Greenwald, Bruce Fein, and me. The panels will be moderated by Jack Hunter.

What’s unique about this program is that it brings together three speakers of different political philosophies, all of whom have the same fierce dedication to civil liberties. In fact, Greenwald and Fein are two of my personal heroes in life. Both of them have been absolutely steadfast in the defense of civil liberties under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. Every day, I make it a point to read Greenwald’s blog at Salon.com, and every day I search Google News for a new article by Bruce Fein.

Forbes magazine named Greenwald one of the 25 most influential liberals in the country. Fein served in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. I’m the libertarian on the panel. All three of us are lawyers. Hunter writes for American Conservative magazine. The Young Americans for Liberty is predominantly libertarian.

So, the dynamics of these panels are certain to be interesting and exciting, especially since the audience will most likely consist of liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and people who don’t have a particular political philosophy.

Most important is the topic — the war on terrorism, the Constitution, and civil liberties.

As most everyone knows, we now live in a country in which the government, albeit democratically elected, is wielding totalitarian powers, under the guise of the “war on terrorism” and “national security.”

The military and the CIA now wield the power to take anyone in the world, including Americans, into custody as suspected terrorists, incarcerate them for life in a concentration camp or prison without due process of law, torture them, and even execute them. The government also now wields the power to simply assassinate people — anyone, including Americans, who it labels a suspected terrorist.

Just recently, a federal court of appeals denied the appeal of Jose Padilla, who is suing the federal government for what they did to him. Notwithstanding the fact that the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments expressly prohibit the federal government from punishing a person without according him certain fundamental procedural protections, U.S. military authorities held Padilla in a military dungeon for some 3 years, torturing him with isolation and sensory deprivation with the intent of causing him permanent mental damage, and claiming the authority to continue doing so for the rest of his life.

The government’s rational for circumventing the Bill of Rights? The war on terrorism and national security.

What’s significant about the Padilla case is not just what they did to him but also the fact that what they did to him, they can now do to every American. That is a critically important aspect of the court of appeals’ denial of relief to Padilla. We now live in a country in which the president can send the military to seize Americans, cart them away to a military dungeon, and torture them, as they did with Padilla.

As most everyone knows, such power has now been codified into law in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Let’s also not forget the USA PATRIOT Act, which authorizes the government to engage in warrantless searches of people’s homes and businesses and permits the government to secretly monitor the activities of the American people. Let’s also not forget the secretive telecom schemes that permitted the government to illegally acquire communications records of the American people — and the immunity granted by Congress for violations of criminal and civil law relating to such schemes.

This is obviously not the type of government that our American ancestors had in mind when they called the federal government into existence with the Constitution. This is an aberrant, dysfunctional government wielding and exercising the same types of powers held by totalitarian regimes.

They tell us that it’s all necessary to keep us safe. Nonsense! For one thing, it’s the U.S. government’s foreign policy that has generated the anger and hatred that manifests itself in terrorist retaliation. For another, history has shown us that when people trade their freedom for the pretense of security, they lose both their freedom and security.

Can Americans restore civil liberties to our land? Can the government be made to abandon even the pretense of wielding these totalitarian powers? Can we restore a limited-government, constitutional republic to the United States?

Absolutely! Nothing is set in stone. When a critical mass of Americans demand freedom, freedom will be restored to our land.

That’s where the power of ideas comes into play. Ideas on liberty matter. They influence people. They motivate people to act.

That’s what our College Civil Liberties Tour is all about — to raise awareness of the type of dysfunctional government under which we now live and how unnecessary, dangerous, and destructive it is — and to share with people the vital importance of restoring civil liberties to our land before things get any worse.

The programs are open to the public and are free of charge. If you are in the area, I hope you will join us and bring your friends. I am sure you will find it to be an intellectually enjoyable and important evening.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

What Do Food Stamps Have to Do With Compassion for the Poor?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

One of the things that fascinate me about progressives is how government welfare programs make them feel about themselves. The fact that progressives support such programs makes them feel like they are good, caring people. What’s also fascinating is that when a libertarian or anyone else opposes the existence of such programs, progressives automatically conclude that that person must be heartless and uncaring.

Consider, for example, an arch-typical welfare-state program, one that every single progressive ardently supports: food stamps. Under this welfare-state program, the government gives stamps to poor people, which they then use to purchase food at grocery stores. The grocery store presents the food stamps to the government for redemption.

Let’s examine what’s actually happening here.

The government is not a magic machine, and it is not a fountain of wealth. In order to get the money to pay for the food stamps, it taxes people.

Let’s say we’re dealing with a poor person named Peter. The government decides to give him $100 in food stamps each month to help him out. In order to get the money to pay the grocery store when it redeems the food stamps, the government imposes a tax of $100 on a rich person named Paul

Now, let’s add a progressive named John to the scene. He’s cheering this entire process. But notice something important here: That’s all that John is doing. He’s not using his own money to help out Peter. He’s simply cheering the fact that Paul is being forced to help Peter.

Pray tell: How in the world does the government’s decision to tax Paul to pay for Peter’s food make John a caring, compassionate person? Why does John feel that this makes him a caring, compassionate person? He hasn’t used any of his own money to help out Peter. All he’s done is cheer the fact that someone else — a rich person — is having his money forcibly taken from him and used to help out a poor person.

Why doesn’t John use his own money to help Peter? Wouldn’t that reflect his compassion and concern for Peter much better than his simply cheering when the government forces John to do so?

In fact, it’s difficult for me to see how compassion and caring enter into a welfare-state program. For one thing, it’s entirely founded on force — the force that comes with taxation itself. After all, only the most naïve consider the payment of taxes to be voluntary. If you don’t pay your taxes, the government will forcibly seize your home, bank accounts, and other assets and use them to satisfy the tax bill.

Moreover, it’s difficult to know exactly who the caring, compassionate person is in this process. Is it the IRS agent who receives and processes people’s withholding taxes? The employer who does the withholding? The members of Congress, who keep the income tax and welfare state in effect? The president, who supports the programs? The Supreme Court, which upholds the constitutionality of the programs? The taxpayers, whose money is being taken from them to pay for the food stamps? The voters, who elect the public officials who keep the food-stamp program in existence. The citizenry, who live under a welfare state? Children, whose parents have brought the welfare state into existence? Or people who cheer the process?

What about people who oppose such programs, such as libertarians? Progressives consider them heartless. They say the fact that libertarians oppose food stamps and other welfare-state programs constitutes conclusive proof that libertarians hate the poor — that they’re selfish, mean, and uncaring.

Suppose that a libertarian donates 10 percent of his income to his church and to organizations that help the poor. What would the progressive say about him? He would say that such donations mean nothing. The fact that the libertarian wants to repeal all welfare-state programs says it all. Even if he is donating 10 percent — 20 percent — or even all of his income — to charitable organizations, the progressive would say that the donor is a no-good, selfish, uncaring person because he opposes the welfare state.

So, you have this strange anomaly. A progressive who gives not one single dime of his own money to the poor looks upon himself as a good, caring, compassionate person because he cheers when the government taxes the rich and gives the money to the poor. And the progressive views a libertarian who gives a lot of his money to the poor as selfish, uncaring, and disdainful of the poor because he opposes the concept of a welfare state.

In a era in which rising federal spending, taxes, debt, and monetary debasement have become a permanent part of American life, the fundamental moral issue that the American people should be confronting is: Is it a proper role of government in a free society to force people to help the poor or anyone else, and how does the use of force make the people in that society caring and compassionate?

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Open Borders Doesn’t Mean No Borders
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Whenever libertarians bring up the idea of open borders, some people in the controlled-borders crowd immediately go ballistic, exclaiming, “But borders are essential to preserve our national sovereignty. If we abolish borders, our nation will cease to exist.”

But open borders does not mean that borders are eliminated, erased, or abolished. An open border simply means that people are free to cross the border. The border doesn’t disappear. It remains in place, only people are now free to cross it.

Additionally, even though people are free to cross the border, the jurisdictions on both sides of the border retain their respective sovereignties. When a person crosses the border and enters into a new jurisdiction, he becomes subject to the laws of that jurisdiction. Sovereignty remains intact even though there are people crossing the border into that particular jurisdiction.

Consider, for example, Virginia and Maryland. The border between the two states is the Potomac River. It is completely open. Every day, countless citizens of Maryland cross the border and freely enter Virginia. By the same token, countless citizens of Virginia cross the border and freely enter Maryland.

There is no government checkpoint on either side of the border. No one keeps count of how many people are crossing back and forth between the two states.

In other words, the border between Maryland and Virginia is completely open. Yet, the border between the two states does not disappear. It remains fully intact and continues to serve as the dividing line between the two states.

Moreover, notwithstanding the fact that the border has been completely open for centuries, neither Maryland nor Virginia has ever lost its respective sovereignty. Maryland continues to have jurisdiction over its territory and the same goes for Virginia. When a Marylander crosses into Virginia, he becomes subject to the laws of Virginia. The same holds true for a Virginian who crosses into Maryland.

These principles are no different with respect to a border between two countries. Simply because people are free to cross an international border, back and forth, doesn’t mean that the border disappears or that the two nations lose their respective sovereignties. The border remains intact and the two nations retain jurisdiction over their respective territories, notwithstanding the fact that people in both nations are free to cross back and forth.

Let me give you a real-life example of open borders. I grew up in a border town — Laredo, Texas. The border between Texas and Mexico is much like the border that separates Maryland and Virginia — it’s a river, called the Rio Grande. From downtown Laredo, a person can see Mexico across the river. On the Mexican side is Nuevo Laredo, a city that is larger in population than Laredo. Keep in mind that Laredo, along with the rest of Texas, was once part of the entire northern half of Mexico.

For decades, Laredo has had the biggest celebration in the country in honor of George Washington’s birthday. When I was kid, U.S. officials would completely open the border between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in order to allow Nuevo Laredoans to freely enter Laredo to enjoy the festivities, including watching a grand parade led by Pocahontas and featuring Laredo’s debutants.

Countless Mexicans would flood across the border. The border was completely open. Yet, the border did not disappear. The Rio Grande remained intact, just as the Potomac River does. Laredo did not lose its sovereignty and, for that matter, neither did Texas or the United States. Mexicans who crossed into Laredo were subject to the laws of Laredo, the state of Texas, and the United States.

The situation is the same in Europe, where for many years citizens in the EU countries have been free to cross the borders of other EU countries. Every day, citizens of Italy, for example, cross the border into France, and vice versa. The borders haven’t disappeared, and Italy and France are still standing, each retaining sovereignty within its respective borders.

Indeed, how many Americans realize that after the United States acquired the entire northern half of Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the new border between Mexico and the United States remained completely open for well over half-a-century, enabling Mexicans to continue traveling freely to what had previously been the northern half of their country? (The Border Patrol wasn’t founded until 1924.) Mexicans would freely cross the border into the United States to visit, work, invest, and even open businesses in competition with American businesses. When they did so, they were, of course, subject to the laws of the United States and the particular states and localities where they went. In the process, the new border between Mexico and the United States did not disappear and neither country lost sovereignty over its respective post-treaty jurisdiction.

Americans have become so accustomed to open borders within the United States that hardly anyone is afraid of them. We hardly ever hear anyone expressing concern that the borders between the respective states are disappearing … or that the states are losing their sovereignty ... or that Marylanders or people from other states who come to Virginia are stealing jobs away from Virginians … or that there is a trade deficit between Maryland and Virginia or any other states ... or that Virginians are moving to Maryland to get on welfare … or that it is too easy for terrorists to cross borders within the United States.

If only Americans could apply their favorable mindset toward open borders within the United States to international borders. What would disappear is not borders and national sovereignty but rather the fear and isolationism that come with controlled borders.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.