Letters to the Editor - Civil Liberties

Kirk signs away freedoms

Wilmette Life
November 2, 2006

Habeas corpus serves to release a party from unlawful restraint when that party has been ordered before a judge or court. President Grant suspended habeas corpus in much of South Carolina to dispense the Ku Klux Klan and make sure freed slaves had all their voting rights. These have not been achieved 140 years later. John Adams insisted he needed the Alien and Sedition Acts to silence his critics in the newspapers. Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order to seize Japanese Americans during World War II for which our country later apologized.

The Military Commission Act does away with habeas corpus, thus denying an imprisoned person many rights. The bill allows the CIA to continue using interrogation techniques so long as they do not cause what is deemed "serious physical or mental pain."

Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Constitutional Law Professor agreed to the statement "... if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant ... " He also commented "It (Military Commission Act) says that if you ever give material support to an organization that the President deems connected to one of these groups, you too can be an enemy combatant." It is not a question if the group is connected but if the President thinks it is connected. Remember the McCarthy commission?

Our attorney general, appointed by the President, signed a memo that people can be tortured, that harm could be done to them to the point of organ failure or death. If Bush appointed such a man, how do you think he would fare appointing people to the board, in front of which someday you might be ordered to appear?

We, as rational people, think this couldn't happen to us. History shows that it has happened to innocent people. Why would we choose to give away this freedom when we don't have any idea who would make decisions that could affect our lives?

By voting for the Military Commission Act, Mark Kirk gave away our freedom. He assumed the right to do this because he is our elected representative. I for one have no intention of ever giving Kirk the power to deny my freedom. I will vote for Dan Seals.

I have excerpted material from MSNBC "Countdown."

Mike McMichael
Northbrook

Wrong Intervention

Winnetka Talk
October 26

I can't understand why Mark Kirk would find it necessary to intervene in the private family decisions of the Schiavo family and not in the lives of Congressional pages. Who does Mr. Kirk truly care about?

David Savard
Winnetka

NSA Abuses Power

Sept 7th, 2006

Once again, Mark Kirk of the 10th Congressional District, who portrays himself
as a moderate, has voted to help the Bush Administration by facilitating its
domestic spying operation.

On June 20, Kirk voted against the bi-partisan Schiff Amendment, which would
have cut off funding for warrantless wiretapping conducted by the National
Security Agency. Kirk once again voted to support the Administration's abuse of
power, and to enable the NSA to continue the illegal business of spying on
innocent Americans in their homes without any judicial oversight. The Schiff
Amendment would have had no impact on legal domestic wiretapping under FISA,
targeting agents of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

I look forward to November, when we will have the chance to weigh in on our
representative, who routinely concurs with this Administration.

Kathy Fishman Northfield

Kirk in step with Religious Right

August 3, 2006
Pioneer Press

Mark Kirk, our Congressman for the 10th Congressional District, voted to deny federal judges the power to hear cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance to ensure that federal courts cannot review the propriety of the pledge's reference to God.

Congressman Kirk also voted in favor of legislation which would allow a 43-foot-high cross to stand on public land in San Diego atop 822-foot high Mount Soledad, even though a federal judge has ruled the cross violates the constitutional separation of church and state and must be removed.

Mark Kirk makes much ado about being a moderate, but he votes like a conservative. This is troubling because it demonstrates that his guiding principle is political survival. He purports to be a moderate in order to secure our votes, while at the same time he works in Washington to advance the agenda of ultra-conservative activists.

We in the 10th Congressional District support religious freedom. We also demand that our government protect this cherished freedom by remaining disentangled from supporting any particular faith over the other.

Those of us who are privileged to live and raise our children in religiously diverse communities are especially sensitive to the danger inherent in permitting the government to prefer one religion over the other, and as to how this can inexorably lead to the unjust oppression of the few by the many.

For his embrace of the views of the extremists within the Republican Party who work to erode our constitutional rights and destroy the separation that exists between church and state, for his efforts to emasculate the federal courts for political gain, and for repeatedly turning his back on his self-professed credentials as a moderate, Mark Kirk should not receive our support this November.

Dwayne Douglas
Highland Park

Support a free press

Winnetka Talk
July 27, 2006

Pioneer Press does a tremendous public service to publish the voting records of the people's elected representatives in Congress. Of interest to me was the vote, published July 6, by Mark Kirk of the Illinois 10th Congressional District on House Res 895, to condemn newspapers for publishing stories about the Administration's tracking of banking transactions.

My condemnation is hereby directed at Mr. Kirk. The resolution of the House had only one objective: to intimidate a free press, and in particular the New York Times, from publishing stories the Administration found uncomfortable.

Terrorists had been put on notice long ago, by prosecutions in this county and by congressional testimony, that the government was looking into banking transactions, and that to avoid discovery by the government of funds transfer in support of terrorism, informal mechanisms outside the banking system are necessary. The question is not what newspapers should be taken to the dock for reporting the news, but who does the government think is more gullible, terrorists or its citizens.

Would Mr. Kirk vote as enthusiastically for a resolution which read "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Would that pass his critical eye?

Fortunately, there is an election coming up in November, and there is a thoughtful and experienced Democratic alternative for the 10th Congressional District, Mr. Dan Seals. I have not spoken to the Seals campaign on this topic, but I imagine that if you contacted them, you would most likely find that Mr. Seals would not have supported a vote for House Resolution 895, and that Mr. Seals supports a free, yes even critical, press.

Paul Chouinard
Wilmette

Paid for by Dan Seals for Congress

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