The ACRU Blog

Senior Fellow Horace Cooper has an op-ed in today's Washington Times, where he argues for renewing FISA.

Says Cooper,

It's been six years since the odious attacks of September 11 and even though there is an understandable amount of complacency settling in, as Margaret Thatcher warned the first President Bush, it's "no time to go wobbly." It is essential that our policy-makers at home drown out the scare tactics of leftist groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). We absolutely must do so in order to make sure that we stay ever vigilant and protect our citizens domestically.

ACRU Senior Fellow Han Zeiger has an op-ed in today's Washington Times. He discusses Philadelphia's Cradle of Liberty Council of the Boy Scouts of America about to be kicked out of their headquarters they have been in for 80+ years.

Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell wrote this column for Townhall.com where he makes the argument that the Justice Department betrayed us with the amicus brief it filed in the DC Gun Ban case, to be heard by the Supreme Court this term.

Says Blackwell of the US Government's apparent desire to split up gun rights:

The problem with splitting a baby in half is that the baby usually dies. If our rights can be regulated to the point that we can't exercise them in our own homes, then they've been regulated out of existence.

Information on this case, DC v. Heller, can be found here.

New ACRU Senior Fellow Kenneth Blackwell wrote this op-ed in the New York Sun today. This op-ed discusses two important cases be heard by the US Supreme Court on January 9th.

Crawford v. Marion County and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita is about Indiana's new voter ID law. The law requires people voting on Election Day to show a government issue ID.

Mr. Blackwell discusses how important this case is. Talking about the views on this issue Blackwell said this:

These views come from two different ways of looking at voting rights. One outlook is that the system should do everything possible to help facilitate voting. This would mean making voting registration and casting votes as easy and fast as we can. The other is that voting is an important civic duty, with the emphasis on personal responsibility to properly register, go to the appointed locations, and fulfill whatever reasonable requirements are necessary to keep fraudulent votes from undermining the process.

Case information can be found here. The ACRU has filed an amicus brief, which can be read here.

Many Congress watchers assumed that the fight between the House Judiciary Committee and the White House over subpoenas to former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten would end when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
resigned.

Read more here.

In the wake of President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Congress is preparing for another showdown with the White House. But this time the dispute won't be over health care spending for children, instead the dispute has consequences for all Americans because it is over which branch of government is best suited to know which ground rules are needed for fighting the war on terror.

The specific conflict is over proposed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) but the broader issue is the distinct differences between the Congress and the President when it comes to national security. Undoubtedly Article I of the Constitution provides a robust role for Congress in these matters: Congress has the authority "to declare War, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." Furthermore Congress is given explicit power to fund and organize the military, legislate international rules of commerce and punish piracy. But crucially, its authority is dispersed among the two chambers and its powers are best read as setting policy on broad terms.

On the other hand, Article II of the Constitution reveals the primacy of executive authority when it comes to the day to day handling of national security threats. Article II vests in the presidency the commander in chief power as well as foreign relations authority, executive order authority and related emergency powers. This combination makes the presidency ideally suited to assess and carry out our nation's national security needs.

The tension between policy setting and day to day implementation is reflected in the dispute over amendments to the FISA act of 1978. After nearly 20 years, Congress this summer passed amendments that modernized the act by expressly granting the president broad authority to use today's cutting-edge technology to engage in international surveillance. But now some in Congress want to roll back that authority.

That would be a dangerous mistake. The new rules work and provide the right balance between civil liberties and national security. Presently, the president is authorized to surveil foreigners without going to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for permission. Additionally, to protect Americans, the law requires the DOJ to develop and submit to the FISA court a set of procedures the president will use in making determinations of who is a foreigner.

Furthermore, the law authorizes the director of national Intelligence and the attorney general to require private companies to assist in surveillance of foreign intelligence targets. And finally, the amendments provide those firms a broad grant of immunity from lawsuits as a result of their assistance.

Unfortunately these changes were temporary, as the act expires in February 2008. Worse yet, however is a "replacement" measure being pushed by Rep. John Conyers -- the inaptly named "Restore Act of 2007."

This bill, which is rapidly making its way through Congress, represents an aggressive and unhelpful assertion of congressional authority. It will cripple our nation's ability to engage in international electronic intelligence gathering and is a powerful argument for why the framers believed the executive must take the lead in matters of national security.

Instead of maintaining the distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence, the so-called Restore Act would force both foreign and domestic surveillance to be reviewed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Not only would this process needlessly delay and in many instances eliminate altogether the gathering of vital intelligence, it rests on dubious constitutional grounds as it encroaches on the president's independent authority to engage in international surveillance of foreigners without coordination with Congress or courts. Perhaps most egregiously, this measure would for the first time cover the American military thereby disrupting their access to actionable intelligence even when needed in a battlefield setting.

And in the name of protecting civil liberties the bill actually threatens them by requiring the creation of a database compiled by the intelligence community. It would consist of dossiers of U.S. citizens that have been tracked by electronic surveillance -- information that would normally not be kept. The bill provides that these dossiers would be annually transferred to members of Congress potentially allowing them to be abused for partisan/political purposes by less scrupulous members of Congress or their staff.

Moreover, rather than devote additional resources to alleviate the lack of trained linguists and analysts to track current threats, the bill authorizes additional manpower and resources instead to meet unwarranted Congressional audit and reporting demands.

Finally, in a nearly unbelievable break with basic tenets of fair play, the bill repeals the immunity from civil liability provided to any firms and individuals that assist the federal government with surveillance gathering. Remarkably, the bill's backers seem to believe that the very companies and individuals that have voluntarily assisted our intelligence gathering efforts in the wake of the worst attack on U.S. soil in modern times should face a torrent of lawsuits as a consequence.

By crippling the gathering of actionable intelligence even in battlefield settings and saddling intelligence professionals with audit and report creation duties in the midst of a analyst resource shortage this bill makes fundamentally clear why the framers invested the executive with the key responsibility for protecting out national security. The Restore Act's insistence on congressional pre-eminence in national security matters authority is a historical and unless amended dramatically constitutes a clear and present danger.

Go here for this story on the Net:
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071023/EDITORIAL/110230005/1013

A healthy debate.

At: nationalreview.com

The second shoe has dropped in Georgia. A year ago, there were temporary injunctions in place in both state and federal courts against the new Voter ID Law in that state. The law had been modified in response to a prior ruling in the federal court. The revised law allowed any resident of Georgia who did not already have a drivers license, to obtain for free a photo ID like those used by people who do not, or cannot, get a drivers license.

Earlier this year, an appeal of a state judge's injunction against the same law was decided in the Georgia Supreme Court. That Court did not rule on the merits of the case, but instead dismissed the case because none of the plaintiffs had any right to bring such a case.

Now, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy has dissolved his own temporary injunction against the law, and dismissed the whole case as being without merit. (Since this was a civil rights case - voting is the most basic civil right - and Georgia prevailed, the last step remaining should be a stiff fee award against the plaintiffs and their ACLU-type attorneys, for bringing a baseless claim.)

Judge Murphy wrote a 159-page decision that praised the state's "exceptional efforts" to contact voters to inform them of the new law, and how to comply with it for free. He also noted that any voter could still vote by absentee ballot without showing an ID, so no voter was "prevented from participating" in elections.

A correct summary of this case came from Secretary of State Karen Handel. She called Murphy's ruling ``a tremendous victory'' for integrity in elections. The state court decision is final. The plaintiff's counsel has not committed to whether they will appeal. The trend of cases across the country is now strongly in favor of Voter ID laws. Appeals of decisions upholding such laws will probably fail.

It will be interesting to see what precincts in Georgia might have significant declines in votes cast, with the ID law being enforced for the first time beginning in with "early voting" on 18 September. If there is a serious decrease, it will indicate that a significant problem has now been solved by a common sense law, upheld by common sense judges.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article in AccessNorthGeorgia.com, from the Associated Press, published on 6 September.

The second shoe has dropped in Georgia. A year ago, there were temporary injunctions in place in both state and federal courts against the new Voter ID Law in that state. The law had been modified in response to a prior ruling in the federal court. The revised law allowed any resident of Georgia who did not already have a drivers license, to obtain for free a photo ID like those used by people who do not, or cannot, get a drivers license.

Earlier this year, an appeal of a state judge's injunction against the same law was decided in the Georgia Supreme Court. That Court did not rule on the merits of the case, but instead dismissed the case because none of the plaintiffs had any right to bring such a case.

Now, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy has dissolved his own temporary injunction against the law, and dismissed the whole case as being without merit. (Since this was a civil rights case - voting is the most basic civil right - and Georgia prevailed, the last step remaining should be a stiff fee award against the plaintiffs and their ACLU-type attorneys, for bringing a baseless claim.)

Judge Murphy wrote a 159-page decision that praised the state's "exceptional efforts" to contact voters to inform them of the new law, and how to comply with it for free. He also noted that any voter could still vote by absentee ballot without showing an ID, so no voter was "prevented from participating"
in elections.

A correct summary of this case came from Secretary of State Karen Handel.
She called Murphy's ruling ``a tremendous victory'' for integrity in elections. The state court decision is final. The plaintiff's counsel has not committed to whether they will appeal. The trend of cases across the country is now strongly in favor of Voter ID laws. Appeals of decisions upholding such laws will probably fail.

It will be interesting to see what precincts in Georgia might have significant declines in votes cast, with the ID law being enforced for the first time beginning in with "early voting" on 18 September. If there is a serious decrease, it will indicate that a significant problem has now been solved by a common sense law, upheld by common sense judges.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article in AccessNorthGeorgia.com, from the Associated Press, published on 6 September.

Go here to find this article on the Net.

Here's my latest article at Forbes:

The promises made by our current Federal entitlement programs would require Federal taxes and spending to double by 2040 as a percent of gross domestic product. The Democrat response: Add new entitlements. Congressional Democrats are moving to double Federal spending on the State Children's Health Insurance program (SCHIP), quite explicitly on their way to the biggest mega-entitlement of all, national health insurance.

Republicans need to go on offense with positive entitlement reforms, and take their case to the people. Does America really want to double or even triple Federal taxes relative to GDP?

Republicans should propose to block grant the entire Medicaid program back to the states, along with SCHIP, just as they did with the highly successful 1996 reforms of the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program.

The Federal government sent its share of spending on that program in a block grant back to the states with the funds to be spent on a new program designed by each state based on required work for the able-bodied. The key is that the block grant is finite, not matching. If the state program costs more, the state must pay those costs itself. If the state innovates and saves money, the state keeps the savings. With these new incentives, welfare rolls under the old program declined by almost 60% nationwide.

Send Federal spending on Medicaid and SCHIP back to the states under the same finite block grant formula. Leave the states free to decide exactly what services are covered under their new state-designed programs, and at exactly what income levels, with a work requirement for the able-bodied.

Limit Federal spending on these block grants to grow no faster than the rate of growth of GDP, producing enormous long-run savings.

Here's my latest Op-Ed, published yesterday at Human Events Online:

Gonzales is Gone but Dems Should Be Careful They Ask For

Score another one for the politics of personal destruction. Democrats have managed to run out of town one of President Bush's longest serving aides from Texas -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.' But they may want to put the champagne glasses down because this resignation may end up for the Democrats being a case of "be careful what you ask for."

For months the Democrats have been clamoring for Gonzales' resignation. And for months he and the White House have been giving back a figurative flip of the hand. Even major media critics such as the New York Times and the Washington Post recently came to accept that Gonzales was here to stay.

But this didn't stop senior Democrats and their insurgents in the blogosphere. They managed to escalate things to the point of a potential constitutional crisis between the Legislative and the Executive Branch. While there were many high minded claims made about the fight, the truth is for Democrats the battle over Gonzales was an essential tool in making up for signature failures by the Democratic controlled Congress: slow-walking ethics reform, inability to get the appropriations process on track, and having no real plan for dealing with the war in Iraq.

And what a great tool it was. But while Attorney General Gonzales proved to be a remarkably effective whipping boy for Washington Democrats, his departure could potentially leave Democrats without any distractions to turn the focus away from themselves and their own lack of achievements.

The 110th Congress has been a remarkable failure up to this date -- energy independence, taxes, appropriations, intelligence reform -- all are in various states of disarray. In fact, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have mismanaged Congress so effectively that they've quietly accomplished what many thought was impossible, a 19 percent approval rating for Congress. And with Gonzales out of the picture the media will likely spend more time seeking answers about their leadership skills or lack thereof.

Additionally, without the fight over Gonzales, Democrats in Washington will actually be accountable for their actions in two areas in particular -- Iraq and national security. While the virulent anti-war wing of their party wants a unilateral removal of American troops, many Democrats realized early on that was impractical and even dangerous. They didn't however dare to admit this to their Jacobin supporters nor did they wish to take any pressure off of Republicans.

Early on after the elections, the anti-war wing of the party signaled that they would punish Democrats if they didn't act accordingly. And Gonzales proved to be essential to get them past that point. Now that he's leaving town, many of these activists are going to start clamoring for action by the Democrats -- action that Democrats have been loath to admit was never going to happen. The other part of this equation involves national security -- in particular anti-terrorism measures. Almost every major Democrat candidate running for President is opposed to the strong measures put forward by the White House as part of the recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reform and so did a majority of House Democrats. In the backdrop of the Gonzales fight, Democrats were free to do this with impunity and only at the last minute offered up a face saving 6 month trial period for these updates. They've done this all year without so much as a whimper from the press. Now that Gonzales can't be used as their pretext, they'll likely have to explain why their party has an almost visceral hostility to measures that safeguard the American people.

Another consequence of Gonzales' departure is that naming a replacement will give President Bush a needed opportunity to consolidate support among conservatives. Especially after the immigration debacle, the President has needed to make a major effort to reach out to the activists within his own party. This effort could happen a couple of ways: by the naming of the replacement or by announcing a major new domestic policy. On the one hand, the President could name Ted Olson as Gonzales' replacement. Conservatives would be excited and even if a fight from the left ensued it would galvanize Republicans. More importantly the fight would also reveal to the rest of America how much invested the Democrats are in for obstructionism solely for its own sake. Such a revelation would likely add additional clarity to the ongoing obstruction of President Bush's judicial nominees. A win here would likely raise the President's approval ratings and could get more of his nominees confirmed.

But the president -- having named Solicitor General Clement as acting Attorney General -- seems more inclined to avoid a politically-regenerating fight. But President Bush could still focus his energies on a major policy announcement in the fall, such as a push for a new federal flat tax or the creation of a new Grace Commission tasked with the responsibility of eliminating wasteful government programs. Doing either would signal a commitment to push conservative principles for the duration of his term. And doing so without being in the midst of an ongoing fight over Gonzales would mean that Democrats would be forced to fight on territory they aren't used to. A win here would confound the punditry and would tremendously reinvigorate Mr. Bush's presidency.

Democrats have gotten comfortable pretending that the only problem facing America was the competence and mendacity of Alberto Gonzales. Pretending to long for the days of John Ashcroft as Attorney General worked for a season. But now things have changed and if they're not careful, Democrats will likely be the saddest to see Gonzales go.

By John Armor

In the August 20 edition of Newsweek, there is a column by Jonathan Alter entitled, "I Know What You Did Last Summer." In the guise of reporting facts, it reports instead the personal opinion of Mr. Alter that the extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "sold out the Constitution," specifically the Fourth Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable search and seizure."

Alter claims that "historians ... will see this episode as a classic case of fear ... trumping principle amid the ancient tension between personal freedom and national security." Unfortunately, Alter's acquaintance with historians seems slight. He may know some names, but he hasn't read the books. Not about World War II, for instance.

He claims that the proceedings of the existing FISA court are kept secret "because they might be politically embarrassing." No, they are secret because revealing the details of spying on enemy agents while a war is going on will get people killed, including Americans. It is only now, more than half a century after WW II, that the best-kept secrets of intelligence gathering in that war, are becoming public.

The following is an article of mine that ran in UPI papers on September 19, 2002 - after we had declared and commenced war on anti-American terrorists but before the Iraq War:

Commentary: Are we at war?

The United States does not legitimately go to war because the president says so. Or because the United Nations, or NATO, or any other organization says so. Or even because some other nation commits an act of war against it.

The only legal way for the United States to go to war is stated in the Constitution, which gives Congress the power "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal...." The Framers gave that power to Congress, and only Congress, because they were mindful of European wars begun by kings, without the consent of the people who paid the price in blood and taxes.

So, are we now at war? Contrary to what many careless commentators have said and written for months, we are at war now. Why? Because Congress has already acted as the Constitution requires.

Here's my latest article, which ran in today's Human Events Online:

President Bush and the Constitution aren't Enemies

The latest spate of articles accusing the Bush Administration of trampling the US Constitution in prosecuting the War in Iraq have quoted Bruce Fein, cited variously as a "conservative lawyer" and "a deputy attorney general in the Reagan Administration." He is not being quoted because he is a reliable source but because he says what the opponents of the war want said. Factual inquiry stops there.

On 5 August, John Diaz, Editorial Page Editor of The San Francisco Chronicle penned the latest anti-war tirade about President Bush's July 17 Executive Order freezing the assets of certain persons who are aiding the enemy in Iraq. Bruce Fein was liberally quoted.

Diaz decries the Order as,"Bush's most brazen defiance of the Constitution." But the country and intellectual argument in general would be greatly served if he, Mr. Fein and most members of the press would bother to crack a history book. For instance, when the US declared war on Japan and Germany, one of its first acts was to freeze the assets of Japanese and German companies in the US. One of those was Bayer Aspirin, which was a subsidiary of a German firm. Oh, the aspirin factories stayed open, pumping out those useful pills. But they were placed under trusteeships, with none of the profits repatriated to Germany. After the War, things all got sorted out.

It is only common sense in any war, to shut off the economic benefits to your enemy. Dollars, and products, in enemy hands turn into weapons that kill Americans. What part of that doesn't Diaz understand?

The Diaz article further proclaims the President's Order "particularly troubling in the hands of a White House that has suggested that domestic war critics are emboldening U.S. enemies in Iraq." Mr. Diaz appears unaware that items seized in wartime to keep them out of enemy hands or to serve the purposes of American troops, are legal seizures as long as compensation is paid -- after the war is over. And, some criticisms of war policies do aid the enemy, like the America First effort headed by Charles Lindbergh in WW II, whose purpose was to keep America neutral, and out of the war against Germany.

Bruce Fein commits the greatest hyperbole, however, by claiming the Order "is the greatest encroachment on civil liberties since the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II." Now, I know Bruce Fein. I used to respect him as having a fine, legal mind. Past tense.

At the time, and to its disgrace, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold the internment of the West Coast Japanese-Americans. Forty years later, the test case, Korematsu v. US was reversed because the original decision was found unconstitutional. Either Bruce does not know the history of the WWII internments, in which case he should have kept quiet about it. Or, he did know and falsified the facts.

Another bete noire of Fein and the anti-war left is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), just amended by Congress over the opposition of Democrats. FISA, of course, provides the mechanism for surveilling terrorists' contacts with people in the United States. (The President has Constitutional authority, as the FISA court has held, to gather intelligence overseas without court approval.)

The truth is that wars are not fought (and won) by lawyers. The US did not say please and thank you before breaking the Japanese naval code in WW II. Americans storming the beaches in Europe or the Pacific then did not go ashore with arrest warrants naming specific enemy to be arrested and "brought to justice" in US courts. Gathering intelligence while protecting your sources is as important to warfare as the movements of armies and navies.

The Diaz article wouldn't be complete without the obligatory quote from the ACLU's national security counsel that "This order could have a serious chilling effect on charitable contributions intended to ease the suffering in Iraq." Ahem. We have several on-going criminal trials in the US today concerning Islamic "charities" charged with using gifts to buy bombs, weapons and ammunition. In the ACLU's worldview, if there even a remote possibility of something having a charitable purpose, you let the money go through. But to a President in wartime if there's a possibility of "charity" being turned into bombs and bullets, you stop the money flow.

Fein asserts that, "'King George III really would have been jealous of this power." (Bruce, King George DID have this power, and used it in all areas of British control during the American Revolution.) Look it up. Mr. Diaz concluded by observing that, "The framers of our Constitution, however, would be appalled." What nonsense. When the Founders mutually pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor," to the cause of freedom in signing the Declaration of Independence, it was a real commitment, not a mere political gesture.

The Founders understood that the Constitution was not a suicide pact. They would respect the efforts of a modern American government to use every legal means to prevail in a war. The Founders would not be appalled at President Bush's actions. They would be appalled at the gross misunderstandings of Messrs. Fein and Diaz of the history of the US and its Constitution.

Here's my latest article over at National Review Online, published July 31, 2007:

Impoverished Poverty Program
Oh, no, Obama

Barack Obama announced last week his policy agenda to combat urban poverty. As president, he would spend an additional $6 billion a year for such things as:

• Providing funding in 20 cities across the country to replicate successful child- and youth-development programs like the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City and the Town Hall Education, Arts & Recreation Campus in the District of Columbia;
• Providing federal financial support for unwed fathers who help raise their children, while cracking down on those who fail to pay child support;
• Expanding the Nurse-Family Partnership program, which provides home visits by registered nurses to new low-income mothers and pregnant women;
• Providing $1 billion in funding for jobs programs that would place unemployed workers in temporary jobs and train them for permanent ones;
• Creating an affordable-housing trust that would finance the building of as many as 112,000 new low-income housing units in mixed income neighborhoods across the country;
• Providing capital for inner-city businesses through a national network of business incubators.

Obama has also proposed to index the minimum wage to increase each year with inflation.

The Honolulu Advertizer has picked up my latest Op-Ed. Here it is:

Three noteworthy cases on 9th Circuit docket

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is proving itself once again to be a powerhouse among the circuits. And based on some of the cases that it will decide this year it might actually edge out the D.C. Circuit as the most influential circuit court in the nation.

With its headquarters in San Francisco, the 9th Circuit is the largest of the 13 courts of appeals, and this term there's a lot happening. Three of the cases awaiting final disposition by the 9th Circuit are quite noteworthy. And depending on the outcome, they could literally change the world.

I just discovered that my most recent Op-Ed has been picked up by a local paper in Texas. My article - "Approval of Religious Expression Reveals False Dichotomy" - appeared in the Jacksboro Gazette-News and The Jack County Herald on June 12, 2007.

Here's my latest op-ed, published in today's Washington Examiner (though they spelled my name incorrectly):

WASHINGTON - A review by Adam Cohen of a new book, Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas, appeared earlier this week in The New York Times.

The review demonstrates that neither Cohen, nor the authors of the book, nor the editors of The Times have a clue about what it means to have a constitution and how such a document operates.

The review began with Cohen getting his knickers in a twist over the fact that Justice Thomas does not ask questions during oral argument. It suggests that he might be ignorant of the case, might have his mind made up or might have contempt for the process, according to Cohen.

Anyone who is experienced in practice before the court knows this dirty little secret - oral argument is just for show; cases are almost always decided on the written pleadings. The only debate that matters is the one behind closed doors on Friday morning when the justices "conference" and decide all cases argued that week. Present are just the justices, no clerks or other staff.

Regarding the two Washington Post reporters who put together this book, Cohen writes, "They offer a wealth of insight, but they have no answer to the central enigma [Thomas] poses: Why the justice who has faced the greatest hardships regularly rules for the powerful over the weak, and has a legal philosophy notable for its indifference to suffering."

Think about that statement. There have been a few societies in which judges were expected to decide cases on the basis of the social position of the parties rather than follow the law.

One of the earliest was during the French Revolution. Those on the wrong side of the law then were fed to the guillotine. A more modern example is the former USSR, in which certain classes of people were "parasites," and were left to starve, or in better times, shipped off to Siberia.

The point this review utterly misses is that the Constitution is, as it says in its text, "the supreme Law." And as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison wrote in The Federalist, the Constitution must be the supreme law, or it could be nullified by state or federal laws, or have different meanings in different parts of the nation.

The review refers to Thomas' views as "far right," but for some odd reason does not refer to the views of Justice John Paul Stevens as "far left." Both labels, however, are misleading when applied to justices on the court.

Instead, the proper question is which justices obey their oaths of office. All justices swear to obey and enforce the Constitution. That means following the Constitution wherever it leads. That is quite the opposite of saying, "Who do I want to win this case, and how must I rewrite the law or bend the Constitution to get that result?"

The review ends with this statement, "America will be a much less just place if Justice Thomas's life experiences and moral truth start to shape the court's agenda - and the nation's."

No one who understands the role of law in the U.S. would write such a statement, nor would any competent editor allow it to be printed unchallenged. America is a "just place" only when everyone obeys the law. And the Constitution contains no exception that places justices above the law.

Cohen, the book's authors and The Times editors might prefer that justices be above the law, and be able to revise the Constitution as they wish (as long as their kind of justices are in control).

But that's not what the Constitution says. Amendment belongs only to the people, as specified in Article V. I guess the editors at The Times didn't read that part of the Constitution, either.

John Armor practiced in the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years and currently serves as counsel to the American Civil Rights Union.

ACRU Policy Board member, Walter Williams, writes about the importance of getting our terms right, and understanding what the Left's terms of compassion really mean:

Dr. Thomas Sowell, a distinguished economist and longtime friend and colleague, recently wrote a series of columns under the title "A War of Words." He pointed out that liberals succeed in duping the public because they are so clever with words that they give the appearance of compassion. Liberals talk about the need for "affordable" housing and health care. They tarnish their enemies with terms such as "price-gouging" and "corporate greed." Uninformed and unthinking Americans fall easy prey to this demagoguery.

Politicians exploit public demands that government ought to do something about this or that problem by taking measures giving them greater control over our lives. For the most part, whatever politicians do, whether it's rent controls to produce "affordable" housing, or price controls to eliminate "price-gouging," the result is a calamity worse than the original problem. For example, two of the most costly housing markets are the rent-controlled cities of San Francisco and New York. If you're over 40, you'll remember the chaos produced by the gasoline price controls of the 1970s. Socialist agendas have considerable appeal, but they produce disaster, and the more socialist they are, the greater the disaster.

Liberals often denounce free markets as immoral. The reality is exactly the opposite. Free markets, characterized by peaceable, voluntary exchange, with respect for property rights and the rule of law, are more moral than any other system of resource allocation. Let's examine just one reason for the superior morality of free markets.

Say that I mow your lawn and you pay me $30, which we might think of as certificates of performance. Having mowed your lawn, I visit my grocer and demand that my fellow men serve me by giving me 3 pounds of steak and a six-pack of beer. In effect, the grocer asks, "Williams, you're demanding that your fellow man, as ranchers and brewers, serve you; what did you do to serve your fellow man?" I say, "I mowed his lawn." The grocer says, "Prove it!" That's when I hand over my certificates of performance -- the $30.

Look at the morality of a resource allocation method that requires that I serve my fellow man in order to have a claim on what he produces and contrast it with government resource allocation. The government can say, "Williams, you don't have to serve your fellow man; through our tax code, we'll take what he produces and give it to you." Of course, if I were to privately take what my fellow man produced, we'd call it theft. The only difference is when the government does it, that theft is legal but nonetheless theft -- the taking of one person's rightful property to give to another.

Liberals love to talk about this or that human right, such as a right to health care, food or housing. That's a perverse usage of the term "right." A right, such as a right to free speech, imposes no obligation on another, except that of non-interference. The so-called right to health care, food or housing, whether a person can afford it or not, is something entirely different; it does impose an obligation on another. If one person has a right to something he didn't produce, simultaneously and of necessity it means that some other person does not have right to something he did produce. That's because, since there's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy, in order for government to give one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. I'd like to hear the moral argument for taking what belongs to one person to give to another person.

There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

The following op-ed from the ACRU's Director of Legal Affiars, Bill Otis, appeared in this morning's issue of the Orange County (CA) Register:

California Focus: Another Type of Conscientious Objector
Doctor is sued for declining to create an out-of-wedlock pregnancy

It wasn't that long ago when liberals, to their credit, fought for freedom of conscience. For decades, they spoke up, in public and in court, for the rights of workers whose religious convictions prevented them from working on the Sabbath; for American Indians whose religious rituals involved the use of peyote; and for young men whose religious scruples forbade them from taking up arms, no matter how urgent the country's military needs. In each instance, liberals rose to defend the religious freedom of small and sometimes despised minorities.

That was then. This is now.

The California Supreme Court will soon decide a religious-liberties case called Benitez v. North Coast Women's Care Medical Group, et al., and liberalism appears to be suffering from constitutional amnesia.

Guadalupe Benitez, who is unmarried but has a gay female partner, in 2000 sought North Coast's assistance in becoming pregnant. The clinic, through the assigned physician, Dr. Christine Brody, attempted to help Benitez by giving her a procedure that did not directly involve insemination; Brody has religious objections to pregnancy and childbirth outside marriage. The treatment failed, and Benitez asked Brody to undertake a more invasive procedure, intrauterine insemination, in which the doctor directly injects the sperm, bringing about a pregnancy.

On religious grounds, Brody declined. However, another North Coast physician referred Benitez to an outside specialist in intrauterine insemination, and North Coast agreed to pay any extra cost involved by virtue of the fact that the specialist was not covered by Benitez's health insurance plan.

With the specialist's assistance, Benitez became pregnant and now has a healthy son. Nonetheless, Benitez has sued North Coast and Brody, asserting that they discriminated against her because of her sexual orientation, in violation of California law. Brody and North Coast have responded that their actions are protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. and California constitutions. The American Civil Rights Union has filed a friend-of-the-court brief on their behalf.

No fair-minded person supports invidious, state-sponsored discrimination against people because they are gay. But Brody and her clinic are not agents of the state, and they have strongly held religious beliefs. Those beliefs - shared by millions - are that pregnancy and childbirth outside marriage are morally wrong. No one doubts the sincerity of Brody's principles, and no sensible person doubts the mounting evidence that families without fathers harm children in numerous ways, including increased risk of academic failure, economic disadvantage and likelihood of involvement in crime.

In the world that liberals used to inhabit, this would be an easy case. Benitez may indeed have felt diminished by Brody's religiously-based decision. But in a country that takes religious liberty and freedom of conscience seriously - to the point of having enshrined them in the Constitution - Benitez's feelings and putative rights, however worthy in other contexts, are outweighed by the founders' wisdom.

The liberals of yesteryear would know this. Their support for the doctrine of conscientious objection proves the point. If, as liberals passionately (and successfully) have argued, the free exercise of religion requires that religious pacifists be exempt from military service even in wartime, then surely it requires that Brody and others who share similar beliefs be exempt from creating an out-of-wedlock pregnancy that would grossly affront their religion.

The social cost of the pacifist's decision is considerable: it is likely to increase resistance to military service in times of national emergency, and some other young man will be required to take the pacifist's place in battle, risking death. The social cost of Brody's decision is small by comparison.

If the free exercise of religion is to have any real operational meaning, if it is ever to have the power to enable a sincerely religious person to resist the power of the state, the California Supreme Court has only one route to take - to protect Brody's freedom of conscience, liberal amnesia and all.

ACRU Policy Board member, Walter Williams, writes that there is a critical element that has so far been ignored concerning the mass murder at Viriginia Tech (aka Virigina Polytechnic Institute) last week :

The 32 murders at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) shocked the nation, but what are some of the steps that can be taken to reduce the probability that such a massacre will happen again? A large portion of the blame can be laid at the feet of the VPI administration and its campus security personnel, who failed to warn students, faculty and staff.

Long before the massacre, VPI administration, security and some faculty knew Cho Seung-Hui, the murderer, had mental problems. According to The New York Times, "Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student. . . ." More than one professor reported his bizarre behavior. Campus security tried to have him committed involuntarily to a mental institution. There were complaints that Cho Seung-Hui made unwelcome phone calls and stalked students. Given the university's experiences with Cho, at the minimum they should have expelled him, and their failure or inability to do so is the direct cause of last week's massacre.

But there is something else we might want to look at. There's a federal law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). As VPI's registrar reports, "Third Party Disclosures are prohibited by FERPA without the written consent of the student. Any persons other than the student are defined as Third Party, including parents, spouses, and employers." College officials are required to secure written permission from the student prior to the release of any academic record information.

That means a mother, father or spouse who might have intimate historical knowledge of a student's mental, physical or academic problems, who might be in a position to render assistance in a crisis, is prohibited from being notified of new information. Alternatively, should the family member wish to initiate an inquiry as to whether there have been any reports of mental, physical or academic problems, they are prohibited from access by FERPA. Of course, the student can give his parent written permission to have access to such information, but how likely is it that a highly disturbed student will do so?

FERPA is part of a much broader trend in our society where parental authority is being usurped. Earlier this year, San Francisco Bay Area Assemblywoman Sally Lieber introduced a bill that would prosecute parents for spanking their children. Because of widespread opposition, the assemblywoman withdrew her bill. Schools teach children sex material that many parents would deem offensive. Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order mandating that every 11- and 12-year-old girl be given Gardisil HPV vaccination as a guard against a sexually transmitted disease that can cause genital warts and even cervical cancer.

Last February, the Commonwealth of Virginia's legislature unanimously passed a law, the first of its kind in the country, that bans universities from expelling suicidal students. Such a law suggests that the Commonwealth's legislature is more concerned about the welfare of a suicidal potential murderer than the lives of his innocent victims. As such, those legislators might consider themselves in part culpable for VPI's 32 murder victims.

There is a partial parental remedy for governmental and university usurpation of parental rights through the power of the purse. Prior to writing out a check for a child's college tuition, have a legal document drawn up where the child gives his parents full and complete access to any mental, physical and academic records developed during the child's college career. While such a strategy might not be necessary for every parent, it should at least be considered by parents whose child has an unstable mental or physical history.

The Washington Times today features an editorial from the ACRU's Director of Legal Affairs, Bill Otis, on the controversy surrounding the Bush Administration's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, entitled, "The Gonzales Hunt."

Here is the full text of the article:

The Gonzales Hunt
By William Otis

No one doubts that Congress has the right, if not the obligation, to inquire into malfeasance by the executive branch. But the current campaign against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales reeks of the very political infection it purports to deplore.