Say it ain't so Joe

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36741.html

So... all the state department has to say is a US citizen is involved with a terrorist organization (or hell, even a foreign military like the French Foreigh Legion), and their citizenship is revoked and they get wisked away to Gitmo, or some other place like it.

Have politicians lost their minds??? We have laws on the books to deal with citizens who take terrorist acts against the US. Tim McVeigh is a good example. We don't need (and absolutley don't want) a governmental department making a unilateral decision about what is and isn't terrorism, and then using that determination to strip a person's US citizenship. This is a horrible horrible idea, one that smacks of McCarthyism, except you just don't get blackballed.. you get deported.

This has to be the worst example of how how the terrorists have won... they encourage pandering politicians to make reactionary, dangerous and thoughtless legislation like this.

Shame on Lieberman. He's not protecting America, he's helping to destroy it.

[Minute]

I agree, but you sound surprised? This guy is a fucking stooge & always has been.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Fuck.. John McCain too? is he really so determined to win election he'll say anything, do anything, have Palin stump for him??? Good Christ, he used to be one of the sane ones before he ran for President.

[Ddrak]

I've been saying it for a while - terrorists are unjustly glorified criminals. Treating them with special provisions like this is only showing just how terrorized you actually are. Obama's speech on the NYC failed bombing was excellent - downplaying the importance, saying current laws are good enough and generally refusing to be terrorized.

Even the "foreign military" thing that's currently on the books is pretty dodgy, especially with an explicit exclusion for the IDF - surely the US has better or at least equivalent allies that deserve similar privilege, not to mention the hypocrisy of allowing foreign nationals to serve in the US military as a shortcut to citizenship.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

I hear what you're saying Dd.. but I'm not sure you get how bad this is. This isn't a slippery slope argument, its a slippery precipice. Lieberman (and now McCain) have suggested that Constitutionally guaranteed rights should be tossed out the window (via revocation of citizenship) based on the whim of a governmental agency (which, as we all know, ispolitically driven), instead of through due process. I might be ok with a law making it a crime to cooperate with a known terrorist organization, with the result of a guilty conviction being the revocation of citizenship.. but I can't swallow a law that gives some governmental agency an end around to Constitutionally guaranteed rights to due process. Once the precedent is set that a political beuracracy can revoke citizenship based on non-ajudicated procedures, then the door is open to other governmental agencies doing the same.

I see Lieberman's efforts (and McCain's support of them) more threatening to the structure of American democracy than anything a terrorist could do.

[Ddrak]

I agree 100%.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

At least there is some protection in previous SC rulings that a citizien can't be stripped of citizenship unless the citizen demonstrates a clear indication that he'/she wants to renounce citizenship. Also, the effort isn't gettng much traction in Washington from either the left or the right.

And fuck McCain now. I used to respect that guy, but its obvious he'd sell his mother's citizenship for another 6 years in the Senate. He's not the McCain he was before he ran for president.

[Harlowe]

I'm in absolute agreement with you Embar. It's ridiculous pandering and it's incredibly dangerous. You can't be a statesman and actually behave like Glenn Beck. Hell even Glenn Beck wouldn't behave like Glenn Beck if he were an elected official (at least I'd like to think he's a clown entertainer and not actually serious).

[Partha]

Don't wanna hear this shit from people who defended Gitmo and waterboarding. That is all.