To: Neocon who wrote (8033 ) 12/1/2001 9:01:23 AM From: jttmab Read Replies (1) | Respond to However, Harvard's Laurence Tribe, a leading liberal professor of constitutional law, tells the New York Times, "Civil liberties is not only about protecting us from our government. It is also about protecting our lives from terrorism." It [Civil liberties] is also about protecting our lives from terrorism." Would you care to take a crack at expanding on the point?Posner says that in balancing liberty and security considerations, we should remember that the constitutional language conferring rights such as "due process" is vague. Such language has acquired its content incrementally, over many years, from judicial interpretations, mostly made in the context of the normal problems of criminal law -- maintaining domestic tranquility by deterring, punishing and correcting disorderly individuals. Hence military tribunals. They need not have juries. They can be secret. They can admit evidence gathered without Fourth Amendment constraints and without compromising the intelligence means and methods by which the evidence was obtained. They can convict without unanimous votes. And such tribunals are implemented under provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice enacted by Congress.
