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Path: utzoo!hoptoad!well!apple!xanadu!michael
From: michael@xanadu.com (Michael McClary)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.guns,alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,misc.headlines,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Why YOU should help educate your fellow citizens on the Constitution
Message-ID: <1990Jan12.230130.9218@xanadu.com>
Date: 12 Jan 90 23:01:30 GMT
References: <11346@venera.UUCP> <11358@venera.isi.edu> <30750@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: michael@xanadu.UUCP (Michael McClary)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Xanadu Operating Company, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 42

In article <30750@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> pierce@cs.ucla.edu () writes:
>In article <11358@venera.isi.edu> ipser@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Ed Ipser) writes:
>
>>      Almost half (49%) thought the President could suspend the
>>      Constitution in times of war or emergency.
>
>Frankly, I thought so, too. I thought that one of Oliver North's
>assignments had been too draw up a detailed plan for such a
>state of emergency and that this was not considered an illegal
>act during the Iran/Contra hearings. Do you mean that the
>Constitution doesn't explicitly give this right to the executive
>branch? Lincoln suspended some of the Constitution even way back in
>the Civil War era when the central government and the executive
>branch were much less powerful and sophisticated.

Nope.  The Constitution is the "License to Operate a Government".
If the operators of the government suspend it, they have not suspended
your civil rights.  Instead, they have suspended their claim to
legitimacy.

However, the Constitution does have provisions for suspending some
civil liberties during difficult times, and the Congress has passed
laws specifying how this is to be done, and authorizing the President
to activate these laws by declaraing a "State of <X>".

It should be noted that:

 - Several "States of Emergency" are currently in force.  (One dates
   from the Korean War.)  Among other things, this raises the penalties
   for espionage, making it tough on whistle-blowers.

 - The legislation authorizing the declaration of an "Internal Security
   Emergency" includes provision for interning people who "may be able
   to" interfere with the government or commerce, and provides that the
   courts have no jurisdiction over their release until 30 days AFTER
   the state is ENDED, but provides no limit on the length of the state.
   (Makes it tough to test the law's constitutionality, eh?)

The Constitution also sets up the three branches of government as a
triple-redundancy system, with mechanisms short of revolution for any
two branches to try to correct misconduct in a third.  (Unfortunately,
this isn't much help if TWO branches fail.)