The Charlotte News

Wednesday, July 29, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page and "Interruption" on the editorial page reports of the extraordinary session of the Supreme Court called by Chief Justice Harlan Stone to consider whether the eight accused Nazi saboteurs who had landed in the country by U-boat were "invaders" such that the ordinary protections of habeas corpus could be suspended under the exception afforded by Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, relieving the government from affording the accused all the rights recognized under the Bill of Rights, those both in letter and spirit, the spirit of democracy and freedom.

The defendants, represented by Army defense counsel, argued that they arrived in this country by U-boat only to escape Germany, not as an invasionary force--however obviously disingenuous that argument was in time of declared war between the United States and Germany.

For one obviously does not arrive by stealth, in a submarine, when one is trying to escape one's country into another, especially not equipped with plans for surreptitious spying on defense plants. One would book passage on a steamer under an assumed name, would report immediately to the immigration authorities in the country of entry and there declare intent to seek political asylum, if that were the goal.

Nevertheless, that was the argument. Government prosecutors argued that the defendants were invaders, "enemies", and thus not entitled to habeas corpus rights and trial before a regularly constituted Article III court with all its attendant due process rights insured by the Constitution.

The defendants should not hold their breath in this one, Ex Parte Quirin. (Or maybe they should.) We shall come back to it shortly. It was decided quickly, on July 31, just as "Interruption" counseled it ought.

The people, says the editorial, were hungry to deliver justice in the same manner justice was being delivered by the Nazi--in summary fashion, without any form of trial at all. That these swinish Nazis were provided even a military tribunal was considered testament enough to the superiority of democracy over totalitarian regimes. Was the attitude a correct one?

The newer phrase employed to deny the panoply of rights afforded by the Constitution, "enemy combatants", has proved problematic in recent times after September 11, 2001. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 124 S. Ct. 2633 (2004), in a splintered opinion, determined that, notwithstanding ostensible Congressional authorization enabling the executive to arrest and detain without due process "enemy combatants", including United States citizens, United States citizens could not be detained indefinitely under the Constitution as "enemy combatants" without access to at least basic due process rights, i.e. the right to notice of the factual basis for the detention and the right to challenge the detention in the courts.

In other words, even a Republican Congress full of itself could not suspend the Constitution of the United States.

The extent to which the "enemy combatant" citizen may have greater rights assured by the Constitution, however, than the bare bones due process rights of notice and hearing, remains splintered by the various opinions filed in concurrence in the case. Does he have the right to effective counsel, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, the right to jury trial, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, giving rise to the right to challenge evidence as unlawfully seized and thus subject to suppression, or the Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment?

The Constitution, itself, must be the guide when it comes to citizens of the United States. For there is no exception to its application to citizens other than under Article I, Section 9, in "cases of rebellion or invasion" where the "public safety may require it".

"Rebellion" means the Civil War, or similar mass rebellion or insurrection. The extraordinary authority of Article I, Section 9 has never been sought to be utilized otherwise. "Invasion" means landing by submarine, in stealth, with evidence of purposeful invasion of the country as an enemy, such as the eight Nazi saboteurs entering the country by U-boat with plans on their persons for sabotage of defense efforts.

Attempt to extend the meaning of those words to include anyone deemed suspicious by a bunch of drunk Republicans out of whack with reality is not only itself a form of Rebellion but one perhaps worthy of suspension of habeas corpus in adjudicating their conduct. So, if you know one, act accordingly.

In another 2004 case, Rasul v. Bush found that non-citizen "enemy combatants" housed at the former detention facility at Guantanamo, (closed by executive order issued by President Obama), were also entitled to some due process consideration and could challenge their detention in Federal court.

In that case, the government, apparently drunk at the time or suffering from the aftermath of a bad drug trip, argued that the foreign nationals were not subject to the Constitution because they were captured on foreign soil and held in captivity on foreign soil, i.e. that of Cuba. The Court simply held that since Guantanamo is maintained exclusively by the United States, the Federal courts have jurisdiction over it.

The government's reasoning, if sustained, could have been utilized to justify, for instance, a foreign government's attempt to try in that country's civil courts American soldiers on an American base in that country charged with fighting while on the base. In short, it was an absurdity.

On the war front, the talk in recent weeks of the opening of a second front to take the pressure off the Russians, possibly an invasion of the Continent itself, had accomplished in part its desired end, causing now the Nazis to scramble some of their forces from Russia back to France for preparation of defense of the French coast.

The map on today's front page immediately shows the significance of Rostov, "the spigot of the Russian oil barrel"--its pipe line to the oil fields north of the Caucasus mountains and its rail line to the Caspian Sea and south along the coast to Baku. Likewise, it shows the strategic significance of maintaining Stalingrad with its industrial base and access via Astrakhan to the southern Caucasus by means of the Caspian Sea to the most fecund oil fields of the Caucasus, on the other side of the mountains around Baku.

Meanwhile, another 600-plane bombing raid hit Hamburg for the second time since Sunday night. A loss of 32 planes was reported, compared to only 29 for the Sunday night raid. A nearly full moon was held accountable. Wolves howl at the full moon.

And, query: how old was that "Belmont youth" who robbed the Shelby grocery of $62 with a dime store cap pistol? Answer: old enough to be sentenced to 6 to 8 years in the pen.

Turning back to the editorial page, query whether "Tax Dodge" presented opportunity for a challenge under the Fourteenth Amendment by taxpayers in the 40 non-community property states, forced, under precisely the same circumstances as citizens in the community property states, to pay higher Federal income taxes, being without the protection of separate returns afforded married couples in community property states by virtue of the notion that in those states each spouse is entitled to half of the product of the marriage, regardless of which or to what extent each spouse brings home the bacon.

"Life and Movies" tells of dramatically changed times, foreign to our own, in terms of morality. A woman had come south with her boyfriend in the Army so that the two might spend a week together before his hitch began. When they booked a room in the local hotel, she was rounded up as a prostitute along with all the regular working girls. The editorial seeks to blame the woman's ill fate not on the poetry of love, but on a recent movie depicting this "indirect glorification of immorality", following the soldier boy to war.

But what about "Jackaroe"? Is that not equally glorifying indirectly of such immorality?

Somehow, the Bible quote fits to quip against the pricks of this loose conundrum.

And the piece by Dorothy Lowell might be re-titled, "A Kaltenborn Sang in Berkeley Square" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving the News of Bombing Raids" or "The World in the Northwoods: These Are the Stakes...5-4-3-2-1...Now, Come on All of You Big Strong Men".

The clipped off quote of the day: "It Is Wrong To Want To Give Propaganda The Many-Sidedness Of Scientific Teaching."--Adolph Hitler

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