Senator Robert Byrd | Securing America without Destroying Liberties

[Guest guest]

Senator Byrd is one of my personal hero's. Have you ever seen him in a tirade in

the senate?? I don't have television, but caught him onC/span last year at a

friends.

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605R.shtml

 

" Securing America without Destroying Liberties "

By Senator Robert Byrd

t r u t h o u t | Statement Friday 16 December 2005

 

Remarks by US Senator Robert C. Byrd as delivered on the Senate floor.

 

I believe in America. I believe in the dream of the Founders and Framers of our

inspiring Constitution. I believe in the spirit that drove President Lincoln to

risk all to preserve the Union. I believe in what President Kennedy challenged

America to be.

 

America, the great experiment of democracy, where the strong are also just, and

the weak can feel secure, and the soul and promise of America stand as a beacon

of freedom and a protector of liberty which lights and energizes people around

the world.

 

Today, sadly, that beacon is dimmed. This Administration's America is becoming a

place where the strong are arrogant and the weak are ignored.

 

Yes, we hear high-flown language from this White House about bringing democracy

to lands where democracy has never been. We seem mesmerized with glorious

rhetoric about justice and liberty.

 

But, does the rhetoric really match the reality of what our country has become

since the heinous attacks of September 11?

 

I speak of the actions of our own government, actions that have undermined the

credibility of this nation around the world. These actions, taken one at a time,

may seem justified. But taken as a whole, they form an unsettling picture and

tell a troubling story. Do we remember the abuses at Abu Ghraib? They were

explained as an aberration.

 

Do we remember the abuses at Guantanamo Bay? They were denied as an

exaggeration.

 

Now, we read about this so-called policy of 'rendition' - a policy where the US

taxpayers are funding secret prisons in foreign lands. What a word - rendition.

It sounds so vague, almost harmless. But the practice of " rendition " is

abhorrent. The Administration's practice of 'rendition' is an affront to the

principles of freedom - the very opposite of principles we claim we are trying

to transplant to Iraq and other rogue nations.

 

The Administration claims that " rendition " is a valuable weapon in the war on

terror. But, what is the value of having America's CIA sit as judge and jury

while deciding just who might be a threat to our national security? Such

determinations receive no review by a court of law. The CIA simply swings into

action, abducts a person from some foreign country, and flies them off to

who-knows-where. With no judicial review of guilt or innocence, a person can be

held in secret prisons in unnamed countries, or even shipped off to yet another

country to face torture at the hands of the secret police of brutal governments.

 

Is this the America that our Founders conceived? Is this the America of which

millions dream dreams? Is this the beacon of freedom inspiring other nations to

follow?

 

The United States should state clearly and without question that we will not

torture prisoners and that we will abide by the treaties we sign.

 

To fail to do so is to lose the very humanity, the morality, that makes America

the hope for individual liberty around the world. The disgusting, degrading, and

damaging practice of rendition should cease immediately.

 

" It's not about who they are. It's about who we are. " Those are the words of my

colleague, Senator John McCain. Senator McCain is a senior member of the Senate

Armed Services Committee. He is a former prisoner of war, and he is exactly

right.

 

There is no moral high ground in torture. There is no moral high ground in the

inhumane treatment of prisoners.

 

Our misguided, thuggish practice of " rendition " has put a major blot on American

foreign policy, and now comes this similarly alarming effort to reauthorize the

Patriot Act retaining provisions which devastate many of our own citizens' civil

liberties here at home.

 

What is happening to our cherished America? Any question raised about the wisdom

of shredding Constitutional protections of civil liberties with roots that trail

back centuries is met with the disclaimer that, " the world has changed " and that

the 9-11 attacks are in effect a green light to trash the Constitution. To seize

private library records, to search private property without the knowledge of the

owner, to spy on ordinary citizens accused of no crime in a manner which is a

sick perversion of our system of justice must not be allowed. Paranoia must not

be allowed to chip away at our civil liberties. The United States of America

must not adopt the thuggish tactics of our enemies. We must not trash the Fourth

Amendment because the United States Senate is being stampeded at the end of a

congressional session.

 

Government fishing expeditions with search warrants written by FBI agents is not

what the Framers had in mind. Spying on ordinary unsuspecting citizens without

their knowledge is not what the Framers had in mind. Handing the government

unilateral authority to keep all evidence secret from a target so that it may

never be challenged in a court of law is not what the Framers had in mind.

Yesterday we heard reports that the military has spied on Americans simply

because they exercised their right to peaceably assemble and to speak their

minds.

 

Today we hear that the military is tapping phone lines in our own country

without the consent of a judge. Labeling civil disobedience and political

dissent as " domestic terrorism " is not what the Framers had in mind.

 

Our nation is the most powerful nation in the world because we were founded on a

principle of liberty. Benjamin Franklin said that " those who would give up

essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither

Liberty nor Safety. " Our founding fathers, intent on addressing the abuses they

have suffered at the hands of an over zealous government, established a system

of checks and balances, ensuring that there is a separation of powers within

government, so that no one body may run amok with its agenda. These checks are

what safeguard freedom, and the American people are looking to us now to restore

and protect that freedom.

 

So many have died protecting those freedoms. We owe it to those brave men and

women to deliberate meaningfully, and to ultimately protect those freedoms

Americans cherish so deeply. The American people deserve nothing less.

 

Earlier today, the Senate voted to stop a bill that would have allowed the

abuses of American civil liberties to continue for another four years. The

message of this vote is not just about the Patriot Act: it is a message that the

Senate can stand up against an over-reaching executive that has sacrificed our

liberties and stained our standing in the world.

 

The Patriot Act has gone too far. Secret renditions should be stopped. Torture

must be outlawed. Our military should not spy on our own people. The Senate has

spoken: let us secure our country, but not by destroying our liberties.

 

Thank God for checks and balances. Thank God for the United States Senate.

 

 

 

" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix