Elrond and Cirdan counselled Isildur to destroy the Ring immediately in the fires of Mount Doom. But Isildur refused, saying: “This I will have as weregild for my father’s death, and my brother’s. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?” -The Silmarillion: “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age,” p. 295
The Obama administration not only appears disinclined to destroy the “rings” forged by the Bush administration, but they are arguing for more and bigger rings:
The line between speech protected by the First Amendment and aid to terrorists appeared elusive at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and the justices’ lively questioning complicated rather than clarified matters. They discussed travel to Cuba, the Communist and Nazi Parties, Tokyo Rose, treason and whether it is a crime to teach a terrorist how to play the harmonica.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan defended the law at issue in the case, which bars providing material support to terrorist organizations, as “a vital weapon in this nation’s continuing struggle against international terrorism.”Even seemingly benign help is prohibited, Ms. Kagan said. [...]Ms. Kagan gave examples of prohibited conduct. A lawyer would commit a crime, she said, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a terrorist group. Helping such a group petition international bodies is also a crime, she added.Justice John Paul Stevens asked if there was an authentic risk that Mr. Fertig would be prosecuted were he to make a presentation on behalf of the Kurdish group at the United Nations. He seemed to expect a negative answer.But Ms. Kagan would say only that the matter would involve a “prosecutorial judgment.”
Think about that for a moment: the Obama administration is arguing that it is a crime for a lawyer to defend a group – or even write an amicus brief on behalf of a group! - that the administration declares (unilaterally, and without oversight) to be a terrorist organization. On their word. Accusation alone. Amazing. Actually, you can’t even make a public presentation at the United Nations – maybe, depending on the discretion of the prosecutor, which is a sure fire way to preserve individual freedoms.
Scalia (applying strict textualism, of course) waxes all “Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos”:
“The Communist Party was more than an organization that had some unlawful ends,” Justice Scalia said. “It was also a philosophy of extreme socialism. And many people subscribed to that philosophy. I don’t think that Hamas or any of these terrorist organizations represent such a philosophical organization.”
As is his custom, he is spectacularly wrong. There are definite, if wrongheaded, philosophical and theological moorings binding groups like Hamas, and even and especially al-Qaeda. But no matter, the founding fathers clearly intended for the executive to have this power, etc.
(via BTC News)
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