Civil Rights Round Up

A civil rights roundup is long overdue and a lot has happened over the last few weeks.  So, let's get started:

• Judge strikes down Bush on terror groups:  A District Court Judge in Los Angeles ruled that President Bush's post 9/11 executive order which designated 27 specific groups and individuals as "specially designated global terrorists" was unconstitutional and vague since it gave the president unfettered discretion to label groups without providing them with a way to challenge the designations.   I smell an appeal.
• Supreme Court Refuses to Block Access to NYT Reporters' Phone Records:  As reported here, on Monday the Supreme Court issued an Order in which it refused to grant a temporary stay in a case where federal investigators sought access to the phone records of two New York Times reporters.  First Amendment rights have once again been trumped by the interests of law enforcement.
• Inspector General Will Investigate Domestic Spying Program:  The investigation will focus on how the Justice Department uses information obtained from the wiretaps, but won't address the issue of whether the wiretapping itself is unconstitutional.  Bummer.
• Muslim Imams Booted Off Plane for Praying:  The community is outraged at the treatment of 6 Imams who were removed from a flight due to conducting daily prayers in the gate area and allegedly "making anti-American statements involving the Iraq war, ask(ing) to change seats once inside the cabin...request(ing) an extender to make his seat belt larger even though he did not appear to need it and that in general 'there was some peculiar behavior.'"  So, they prayed, expressed opinions consistent with the majority of Americans about the Iraq war, and requested a larger seatbelt.  Very threatening stuff indeed.  Sounds to me like their "peculiar behavior" was actually flying while Muslim.  We can't have that now, can we?
• Senate Democrats Plan Overhaul of Military Commissions Act In Order to Restore Habeas:  As reported here, the bill, among other things,  "seeks to give habeas corpus protections to military detainees; bar information that was gained through coercion from being used in trials and empower military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable."  Sanity, at long last.

Comments

[slickdpdx]

There's more to the imam story which you may not have read, that, from what I understand include irregularities and patterns in seating locations.

Aren't you glossing over the seatbelt expansion requests? Typical for six non-obese men travelling together? Hardly.

Finally, I'll save my sympathy for someone who wasn't trying to provoke the very reaction they got.

[NBlack]

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, Slick. The flight crew had a tough call to make, but I think they made the wrong one.