The Constitution Attacked, Again!
By Peter G Cohen

After 220 years of defending our freedoms, you would think that the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, would be inviolable. They were written with care and amended by the states to protect our people from the excesses of government experienced under British rule. They were added to the new Constitution to reassure those liberty-loving Founders that the rule of law would prevail.

Last year, in preparing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) the House of Representatives included a section that allows the indefinite detention by the military of anyone suspected of supporting al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces. The act became law when signed by the President on New Year’s Eve.

When the nature of this section of the NDAA became known, civil libertarians were outraged. How could Constitutional amendments be changed by the Congress and the President bypassing the requirement to change the Constitution by amendment? The indefinite detention of suspects without charges, due process, or trial by jury, violates the first, fourth, fifth and sixth amendments.
What could be done to stop this unconstitutional law?

Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg and others filed a lawsuit against indefinite detention. It is noteworthy that this lawsuit was filed by individuals and not by the organizations established to defend our Constitutional rights.

On May 16th, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest blocked the implementation of indefinite detention on the grounds that “There is a strong public interest in protecting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment” and ensuring due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. She wrote that “it is the responsibility of our judicial system to protect the public from acts of Congress which infringe upon constitutional rights.” –Courthouse News Service, 5/16/12

But while freedom-loving people were celebrating Judge Forrest’s decision, the House repeated its violation of the Constitution by inserting indefinite detention into the NDAA, FY-2013. “Never mind that hundreds of terrorists have been locked up by civilian courts. Supporters of detention said that they were horrified that a police officer might read a terrorist a Miranda warning”. –New York Times Editorial, 5/19/2012

Both parties have members who believe that their constituents want them to clobber suspected terrorists. Without due process, some of those arrested would never be able to prove their innocence. Some may be “suspected” by hostile neighbors, political opponents or criticism of our government. When the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution by the amendment process, the new nation had just completed a long and painful war against the mighty British Empire. Still, the people were not so fearful as to deny basic human rights to those who might want to damage their new government. Al-Qaida is dispersed, Bin Laden is dead; are we still so fearful as to risk punishing the innocent and relinquishing the basic rights that we have been defending for over 200 years?

Peter G Cohen, artist-writer, is a veteran of W.W.II, a grandfather and peace activist. He is the author of nukefreeworld.com and other internet writings. Peter lives in Santa Barbara, where he can be reached at

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