I had the same reaction to the Lynne Stewart business.
But I also think liberals need to start buying guns, so. Color me paranoid if you want.
Who says the left isn't commenting? There's this for instance, and several other comments in the same thread.
I think it's possible to hold in your head at the same time the reactions that Stewart's prosecution is a scary threat to civil liberties and that a political statement containing the series "Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart, and Howard Dean" is slanderous demagogery. Also, there's this: The outrage about the Boxer/Stewart/Dean quote is emanating from Democrats and political activists which is hardly the same thing as the left.
Maybe the Stewart thing should become our generation's Dreyfus Affair.
I agree with Tom F, but I also think it would be becoming for Democrats to be outraged about this, if it is outrageous. (I'm a Democrat, outraged about the lumping, not sure if I count as "left" by this definition anymore.)
But there is another issue--absent expert opinion, I wasn't quite sure about the merits, and I'm still not totally convinced. Napolitano writes
And since when does announcing someone else's opinion about a cease-fire - as Ms. Stewart did, saying the sheik no longer supported one that had been observed in Egypt - amount to advocating an act of terrorism?
I fear that that might be like this situation: Jimmy "Those Little Pins They Put In New Shirts" Zooroni is in jail awaiting trial. Jimmy's lawyer, Waldorf T. Shyster, announces to the press that Zooroni has decided that his mob oughtn't to be observing a cease-fire with the Corleone family. Over the next month, a lot of Corleone's are whacked by Zooroni's friends.
Is what Shyster did protected by First Amendment rights? It's not clear to me that it doesn't amount to passing along an order to commit murder. And that would be a crime in itself, not protected by the First Amendment.
I'm not a lawyer, and Napolitano is a judge, so he's more likely to be right than I am on the legal issues. But I do worry. (I should, however, have noticed that attorney-client privilege had already been destroyed in this case anyway.)
It is insane when the right uses torture and violations of individual rights as wedge issues. People are going to look back and be apalled.
Meyers links to this Horowitz site on the "leftist network" that show pictures of terrorists, polititions and actors next to one another:
http://discoverthenetwork.org/individual.asp
Like Roger Ebert, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Zacarias Moussaoui all go to cocktail parties together.
Point taken, Matt. That statement to the press is the most plausible reason to sanction Stewart. I did a little cringe when I read it. But, again, like you say, the vitiation of attorney-client privilege is the real story here.
Ogged thanks for posting I had a post set to draft that I slept on.
Matt you are right. Two quick points. First, Stewart was charged under a provision similar to a patriot act provision of providing assitance. The Patriot provision has been pretty skeptically viewed by the courts and the judge (citing a case striking down the Patriot Act provision) dismissed this count.
Stewart was actually in trouble for violating the terms of an administrative order which restricted the terms of her interaction with her client. 1. unfortunately she agreed to these terms and should have challenged them directly, rather than violating them. 2. these special administrative restrictions have been challenged and people have generally lost (this is all discussed in the order dismissing some of the counts).
So Stewart is technically wrong and the NYT guy is slightly off base IMO.
Nevertheless, the lack of outcry is appalling. For a slew of reasons this was not a really effective terrorism prosecution. 1. the terrorist acts took place elsewhere; 2. stewart's actions had a tenuous effect on the actual events (if any). The lady is a middle aged ex-librarian for god's sakes! It's tragic that this is one of the crowns in Ashcroft's prosecutorial crown. What a waste of money and prosecutorial time and energy.
Thanks, Bala. That makes sense. I wonder why she agreed to the terms? And what about Napolitano's contention that the AG ought not have the ability to "make" laws--in this case, doing away with attorney-client privilege?
I think she just agreed to them thinking that they wouldn't come into play. While I'm incredibly conscientious when it comes to documents that clients sign, when it comes to my own personal documents sometimes (like with respect to insurance policies, real estate stuff, for example) I hardly read them. She probably treated them as a formality and I can see doing the same.
The rules Napolitano complains about unfortunately first reared their ugly head during the CLinton administration. It's a pretty serious stretch to call them Ashcrot's (I like that misspelling) rules.
I think Clinton legislation gave the AG power to further enact rules, but either way I think the executive branch does that all the time.
I am SO glad you posted this. The Lynne Stewart case has bothered me from day one. The arrest was clearly bullshit, and I know I bitched about it at the time (dunno if I did on the blog or my previous blog, though), but the result kind of silenced me. I didn't know how to interpret it or what to think. And I've been wondering why no one seems to be talking about it much. It scares me, because it feels like it's been successful: convicting her seems to have shut us all up.
Which also obtains w/r/t Ward Churchill by the way--it's interesting how a lot of the talk around him has shifted away from the first amendment issue to identity issues--his credentials, his fake Indianness, whatever. Which no one gave a rat's ass about before...
Uh, Bala, maybe you should post that post after all. Do I have this right?
There are two things: Patriot provision (struck down by courts) and administrative rules (upheld by courts)?
You say she was charged under the one struck down, but in trouble for violating the one upheld. Ok, structurally that makes sense to me, but I'm totally fuzzy on the details now.
Sorry to create confusion. She was charged with a bunch of stuff relating to her violations of her agreement to abide by the special administrative restrictions. These were the charges she was ultimately convicted on. Basically lying about her compliance with her agreement and her violation of her agreement.
Separately, the government charged her with providing material support to a terrorist/terorrist organization. (I am not sure if this was a patriot act provision or not -- I think not, because most of this predated the patriot act. Either way, it's similar to something in the patriot act. Great link here). This charge of providing material support was struck down and the provision (like the patriot provisions) courts are not hip to.
Hope that clears it up.
Maybe the Stewart thing should become our generation's Dreyfus Affair.
And bloggers can be our Zola! J'accuse, posted at 5:17 pm!
I suppose this wouldn't make me feel quite so ill-at-ease if Bush hadn't just appointed a death-squad goon as intelligence-gatherer-in-chief.
Oh my God. John Negroponte?
This is just swell. And it appears from a Google news search that only The Nation is out there talking details about his past. What is Nancy Pelosi doing making positive noises about this?
I'll stop ranting now.
It sometimes feels as if a few of us have gone through the looking glass, eh?