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7/18/2002 (12:21) |
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‘Donahue’ for July 16
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Read the complete transcript of Tuesday’s show
DONAHUE - JULY 16, 2002
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PHIL DONAHUE, HOST: Today President Bush unveiled still another phase of his homeland security plan, saying that the United States faces grave threats of terrorism and are in need of broad measures to fight back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By acting together to create a new and single department of homeland security, we’ll be sending the world a signal that the Congress and the administration will work together to protect the American people and to win this war on terror.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Plans are the following: tighter rules for obtaining drivers’ licenses. Facilitate apprehension of potential terrorists, continue ongoing investigations and prosecutions. This past October, the controversial U.S. patriot act, signed by Bush, was the first step toward averting terrorism.
Cliff May is from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, he supports the act and wants lawmakers to use it to detain any suspected-anybody suspected of terrorist activity. Bill Goodman is here of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He thinks the act allows authorities who unlawfully abuse thousands of innocent Muslims.
Welcome to you both, gentlemen. May I start with you, Mr. Goodman. I think you have the biggest challenge here. I believe fear trumps everything.
I believe if you start saying you’re concerned about civil liberties, people will say, they’re coming, they’re underwater, they’re overhead, they’re going to kill us. They’re going to kill our children. And you are worried about whether we read them their Miranda rights?
BILL GOODMAN, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: Right.
DONAHUE: You get no sympathy in the heartland.
GOODMAN: And what I say to them is that if we allow the Constitution to be destroyed-and have no doubt about it, it is being destroyed and undermined by the White House and by the Justice Department. If we allow that, then at the end of the day, Osama bin Laden has been successful.
The horrors of 9/11 have been achieved not only on 9/11, not only with the death of people and the destruction of buildings and the destruction of the economy, but with the destruction of the Constitution as well. That’s what I say.
DONAHUE: I have to start you off here-and I know you’re anxious to get in here. James Madison, “Those who would sacrifice freedom for security will get neither.”
CLIFF MAY, FDN. FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: That’s absolutely right, Phil. But that’s not what’s going on and it’s slander to say it is. Listen, our rights are being infringed. They are being infringed every time you go to an airport and wait through an hour worth of line. The terrorists are doing that. Every time you pay your taxes, we’re spending a hundred-billion...
(CROSSTALK)
GOODMAN: That is an inconvenience, but...
MAY: How about the 3,000 people, all of whose rights were taken away on September 11th? Every single right they have. Now we want the chance to defend ourselves. The Patriot Act was voted by in the Senate. Virtually every member of the U.S. Senate, Republican and Democrat alike, voted for that.
DONAHUE: Except one member of the United States Senate, who will be on this program in a few minutes.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Look, no constitutional rights have been taken away from any U.S. citizen or anybody else. But understand that people who are in this country...
GOODMAN: That’s just untrue.
MAY: Name one American citizen whose rights have been taken away.
Name one.
GOODMAN: Mr. Padilla. Mr. Padilla is now being held. He’s an American citizen. Mr. Hamdi is now being held. Neither of them are being given a right to a trial, a right to even see their lawyer. Their rights are being violated, and that’s what’s going to happen-not only to them, but to many Americans.
MAY: We are at war. We’re at war with people who killed...
GOODMAN: I just gave you an example. You asked for some examples.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: And these are enemies...
GOODMAN: So they’re bad people. Right. So they don’t have a right to go to court? They don’t have a...
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Mr. Goodman, their rights have not been taken away. The Supreme Court decided in 1942, eight Germans came across. They were treated the same way.
GOODMAN: They were Germans. They were not U.S. citizens.
MAY: No, two of them were U.S. citizens. And one of those two was executed, and you know it. You know it, don’t you? They were U.S. citizens.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Enemy combatants do not have a right to a lawyer, to be Mirandized. They do not have all those rights. We’re talking about war.
DONAHUE: You’re talking about war...
MAY: If someone like Mr. Goodman was fighting World War II, he would have sent our soldiers to shore at Normandy with subpoenas to Mirandize all the German soldiers.
GOODMAN: That’s a little bit out...
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: We’re at war here with enemy combatants. When we arrest somebody on the battlefield, we do not have to assign them an attorney.
GOODMAN: Padilla wasn’t arrested on the battlefield.
MAY: The battlefield is Washington, D.C. Take a look at it.
GOODMAN: Then the battlefield is the entire country and no U.S. citizen has a right under strained conditions, or under any conditions. If the president of the United States decides that he doesn’t like them, if Ashcroft decides that he doesn’t like you, then they can arrest you, hold you, and you have no right to a lawyer.
You have no right to be brought in front of a judge, right? Correct?
Because the battlefield is here.
MAY: I asked you what innocent U.S. citizen has ever had their rights? Do you think Padilla is innocent?
GOODMAN: Innocent.
MAY: Do you think he’s innocent?
GOODMAN: Since when does innocence say that you have a right to constitutional rights?
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Mr. May, you’re not worried about Americans...
MAY: How many 9/11s will it take for you to get serious about this war?
GOODMAN: How many thousands of people have been detained by the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States-noncitizens, who also have constitutional rights? And how many of those people-there have been thousands of them-have been charged with terrorism? There are at least 2,000.
MAY: There were about 1,000.
GOODMAN: No, that’s wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: They’re down to about 36 now.
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Please.
MAY: I’m sorry.
DONAHUE: That’s all right, I appreciate very much your passion here. These are very important issues. Nobody is accusing you of coming from anyplace but the heart. But we want to make sure we’re making sense.
May I ask you, Mr. May, sir, we are impressed with the enthusiasm of your position. Really, we are. We know you give a damn. Are you not at all at least somewhat respectful and empathetic of efforts by Mr. Goodman and others to preserve what we sent thousands and thousands of our best young men and women to fight for in foreign wars?
MAY: Absolutely.
DONAHUE: We spilled our own blood on battlefields around the world. This is the most fabulous democracy and idea in the history of civilization. And now we seem to be giving it away because we’re scared. All men are created equal, unless we’re scared.
You get a jury of your peers, unless we’re scared. Don’t we have a little more respect for what makes us America?
MAY: Phil, I do not believe that in any way we have lost one constitutional right. But people-look, Robert Jackson, who was a justice of the Supreme Court, also said that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. None of the people you’re talking about has been deprived of any constitutional rights.
Now, if you want to establish other procedures for enemy combatants, you can. I’m sure you think the people down in Guantanamo Bay are being terribly treated. I’m sure you protested that, didn’t you?
GOODMAN: I think the people of Guantanamo Bay have rights. They have rights to...
MAY: To what? To a lawyer?
GOODMAN: They have rights under the Geneva Convention. Are they combatants? What are they?
MAY: We need to be able to interrogate terrorists and terrorist suspects. What Mr. Goodman wants is to have...
GOODMAN: Well, why not torture them?
MAY: I’m not suggesting that! I’m suggesting we have the right...
GOODMAN: Why not kill them? You don’t like them, kill them. Torture them.
MAY: I’m saying we have the right to ask them questions to find out what other plans there are.
GOODMAN: Of course we do.
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: We shall return in just a moment, with Cliff May and Bill Goodman. I don’t know how much of this dialogue is under way across America today. I hope so, because we are talking about ground zero of the American Constitution. And we’ll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: We’re talking about the fight over the Patriot Act. With me is Cliff May, who believes the Patriot Act protects us from future terrorists and Bill Goodman, who thinks the act is unconstitutional. We can debate the topic but many families have to live with these issues. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SALMA AL-RUSHAID, WIFE OF DETAINEE: We came here. We left everything behind us. We came here for what America stands for: justice, freedom. Not in a million years I would have thought this would happen to us here.
It was on December 14th. It was one of the days of Ramadan, our holy month of fasting. I wanted to go visit my neighbor. I was back less than 20 minutes and there were three men in my living room. Right after that, one of the other men approached my husband and read him his rights and cuffed him.
For some reason I was numb. I was yelling inside, don’t take him, Don’t take him. They disappeared. They just took him and they disappeared. I think it was close to three days before we found out that he’s in solitary confinement in Monroe County jail. It was really difficult for him because, as an honored man, you know, he’s lived his life with dignity and respect. And it was really degrading.
I wake up in the morning, make my coffee. And then I cannot function.
Neither do the kids. You cannot function until that phone rings.
(TELEPHONE RINGS)
AL-RUSHAID: Monroe? Monroe? Monroe? Hi, baby, how are you? I’m doing OK.
There is hope. I still want to stay here. My kids want to stay here.
We’ve established a lot here. Their friends, my friends, the community.
We love this place. We love this place dearly. I just want him back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DONAHUE: Joining us from Michigan is Salma al-Rushaid. And with us in the studio is their attorney, Ashraf Nubani. Can you hear me, Mrs. Rushaid?
AL-RUSHAID: Yes, I can hear you fine, Mr. Donahue.
DONAHUE: Are you permitted to visit your husband?
AL-RUSHAID: Say that again, sir?
DONAHUE: Can you visit your husband in jail?
AL-RUSHAID: Yes, I can. I see him every Saturday and Sunday for half an hour each time.
DONAHUE: Yes. What is he saying about the nature-what about the confinement, other than his loss of freedom, very serious, to be sure. But has he told you anything about his life in the jail?
AL-RUSHAID: Yes, naturally. I’m his wife. When I visit him I ask him these things. His life has been difficult. As you heard me say before, he’s lived all his life with honor and dignity. And for him to be taken away from his wife and children, from his family, from his community, from his friends that way.
And, for seven months now, not be charged with anything, it’s very, very difficult. He is a human being. He’s a man like any other man, innocent. So you can’t imagine the toll on any innocent man.
DONAHUE: Your husband, the prisoner, is Mr. Rabih Haddad. Obviously
” and his attorney is here, I should say, as you know, Mrs. Rushaid. And I should say that, no doubt you’re well represented. What is your petition for this grievance and how are you trying to make this happen in a court of law?
ASHRAF NUBANI, REPRESENTS DETAINEE: Well, the grievance is that a man has been detained for over seven months with no charges. It’s a minor immigration violation, that of overstaying his visa.
And when I say minor, it’s an administrative violation. It’s not a violation of the criminal law. And in fact, he’s been to the United States several times and always maintained a great record.
He made a mistake. He tried to repair that mistake by paying a penalty, something that the law allows for. We have someone...
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Let me just establish a couple of facts and see if we agree on these facts. One, he was living in this country illegally. He was working in this country illegally. He started an organization that...
NUBANI: No, that’s not true.
MAY: Let’s go over these. He started an organization that the FBI, the U.N., NATO and the...
DONAHUE: You speak of Global Relief Foundation.
MAY: That is connected with al Qaeda, with the Taliban and with Hamas. And that he was also associated with Wadeed al-Had (ph). You can tell that Wadeed al-Had is the personal secretary to Osama bin Laden, now in prison for his connection with the 1998 bombings of our embassies.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: And one more thing. He’s not cooperating with the authorities. He’s refusing to answer questions of a grand jury on grounds that it might tend to incriminate him. Is all that true?
NUBANI: Mr. May, I’ll give you an opportunity to speak as long as you give me an opportunity to speak. In terms of the organization, the humanitarian relief organization, Global Relief Foundation, of which Pastor Haddad is a co-founder, brought a lawsuit against the United States government for its illegal seizure of their assets and the blocking of their funds on December 14th, the same day that they jailed Pastor Haddad.
MAY: Did he even have a right to start this in this country?
NUBANI: I asked not to be interrupted. I’ll give you the full opportunity if you give me the full opportunity, otherwise no one is going to benefit from the conversation.
The organization brought a lawsuit against the United States government because of the illegality of the Patriot Act, which allows a domestic organization here, Global Relief Foundation, to have its assets closed, to have its operations shut down, to prevent humanitarian relief from reaching needy people around the world, unconstitutionally.
And what the government did in order to justify their illegal seizure of the assets, went and started a campaign against Global Relief Foundation, saying that they’re tied to terrorists. Seven months later, we have no criminal charges.
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Let’s just make the point again. The gentleman has been in jail for seven months. I’m not sure if that was clear.
NUBANI: In terms of cooperation, it’s very simple. We have to trust our citizens and noncitizens. People living in the United States have to trust the government in order to feel that the government is doing the right thing. Otherwise, why would you expect...
MAY: He was here on a tourist visa. His visa expired. He was not here legally.
DONAHUE: You acknowledge his failure to ensure that his visa didn’t lapse, do you not?
NUBANI: Well, what he did is he-no, he filed for an extension of that visa, but because of the-because of the bureaucracy, the INS took a long time to respond to that extension.
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Forgive me, gentlemen. It is important that I make just one break for a moment. This will continue in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: We’re talking about the U.S. Patriot Act. Salma al-Rushaid’s husband has been one of more than 1,200 detainees held since 9/11. He has been in jail for seven months. None have been charged with any terrorist activity.
Here’s what Mr. Haddad had to say on the phone from prison when asked about the accusations against him.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
PASTOR RABIH HADDAD, PRISONER, MONROE COUNTY JAIL: There has been no charges. There has been innuendoes and insinuations that are unfounded and if they hold me for seven years, it will still be innuendoes because I know there is nothing there.
There is no question that America has a right to defend itself and protect its people. But America is a proclaimer of liberty and freedom and democracy all around the world. Global Relief Foundation is a humanitarian relief organization. It has nothing to do with Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, or any terrorist activity whatsoever.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Well, there you are. Well, this has got to move you deeply, Mrs. Rushaid. We should all also say that your husband lost a parent while he was in prison. Is that so?
AL-RUSHAID: Yes, he did. He lost his father.
DONAHUE: And was he permitted to go to the funeral?
AL-RUSHAID: No, of course not. His father died in Lebanon.
DONAHUE: Oh.
MAY: Wouldn’t it be a good idea, Counselor, why don’t you advise Mr. Haddad to answer the questions he’s been asked by the grand jury? He says he loves this country. He says he’s done nothing wrong. He says his organization is not terrorist-linked, as the FBI, the U.N., NATO and the Bosnian police believe.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea for him to say, I want to cooperate, I want to help?
NUBANI: That’s a very good point. And let me just base my comments to the American people and sort of the strain that you have that you’re coming from. He’s spoken for himself eloquently and he doesn’t need me and he doesn’t need his wife.
He does love this country and that’s why he came to this country. All he’s asking for is his liberty, when the United States has not brought criminal charges against him. You talked about cooperation. Everyone in Global Relief Foundation has cooperated with the United States government.
MAY: He hasn’t. I don’t know if that’s true, but he hasn’t. Do you agree with that?
NUBANI: He said that he will talk if he’s given immunity.
MAY: If he’s given immunity.
NUBANI: Yes.
MAY: What does he need to be given immunity about?
NUBANI: Mr. May, let me explain the legal system to you.
(CROSSTALK)
NUBANI: Seven months later they’re not willing to give him immunity. The reason is is because they know they have nothing against him. And by giving him immunity, they cannot continue to keep him incarcerated. They would have no basis for keeping him incarcerated.
GOODMAN: I’d just like to add to this that Pastor Haddad is one person. And Mr. May has all sorts of accusations. Why doesn’t he cooperate? Why doesn’t he do this?
There have been thousands of people who have agreed, get us out of this hell. We agree to deportation. We agree to departure. And they’ve been held for months and months and months. And they’ve been crushed, just as he’s been crushed.
And they’ve had relatives die on them. And they have languished in jail. And sometimes they’ve been beaten. Many times they’ve been beaten.
MAY: Oh, you don’t know that.
GOODMAN: I do know that. I do know that. In fact, I saw one of my clients take his teeth after he had been shoved against a wall at the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) detention center in Brooklyn, and make them go back and forth loose. And he was begging for dental care and he got nothing there.
And that happened over and over again. And I heard that story over and over again.
DONAHUE: We will be back. We will give you a chance.
When we come back, a grieving husband responds by saying his wife didn’t have any rights when she was murdered on September 11th. The loved one of a person who died in the terrorist attacks. We’ll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: The fear in the country was very high after September 11, and we enacted the PATRIOT Act. While civil libertarians call the act unconstitutional, our next guest feels if it had been in place before 9/11, his wife might still be alive.
Welcome Mark Morabito.
Your wife was on the first plane to hit the first tower, is that right?
MARK MORABITO, LOST WIFE ON 9/11: That’s correct. American Airlines Flight 11.
DONAHUE: And you also say that she was seated behind, or front of...
MORABITO: No, she was sitting in the first row of first class, and Mohammed Atta was actually sitting behind her.
DONAHUE: So Atta, the man that we saw get on the plane in the security at-in Maine, in Portland, Maine, was seated behind your wife. You know that because of the seating chart.
MORABITO: Seating chart, correct.
DONAHUE: And you’ve heard us discussing the PATRIOT Act. May we have your thoughts please?
MORABITO: Well, I seen and heard a lot of extremist views on this. We had 3,000 people-they weren’t killed, they were murdered. People have the tendency to forget that. My death certificate says “homicide.”
They weren’t killed. There was a terrorist act against our county. What do we do to protect our people that live here? We’re not in a perfect society anymore. I know we detained some people, but we have to get to the bottom of it. We have to protect it. How are we going to do it?
DONAHUE: Well, there are not a few people, Mark, who think that it can be done without surrendering, really, the heart and soul of our Bill of Rights which, if we don’t, then this first 10 Amendments become kind of a quaint, nice idea. We give awards to kids in high school for speech contests.
MAY: There are 36 people who are still being held that they’re trying to question. Of the thousand-or-so who were first questioned, if they cooperate and they had done nothing wrong, they were released. If they were here illegally, they may have been sent back home and deported.
There are people around the world who want to live in this country.
No one has a right to be here and kill Americans whenever they see fit.
DONAHUE: Let’s let Mark make-you wanted to say?
MORABITO: One of the things we have to look at, it’s a privilege to come to America. These are visas. I don’t care if it’s a minor violation or not, you have to get the visa OK’d. And if you don’t do it, it’s your fault.
This is not the welcome society, come in her (ph). We’ve had that since we’ve been around. We have to do something about that, and we have to do it in the correct way and the correct manner. But we have to correct ourselves.
You talked about the 10 rights. Think about it, Phil. Was your wife on your airplane? No. Any of your kids on that airplane? No. Anybody here? No.
So it’s great to talk about this stuff, and it’s great to come out here, we’re having a great discussion. But let’s face it: We have to protect ourselves. And how do we go about doing it? Do we take our rights back? No, we don’t take our rights back. But what do we do with the American people, what do we do with the people who come to this country, how do we protect ourselves?
DONAHUE: Mrs. Rushaid, you wanted to say?
AL-RUSHAID: Yes, my heart goes out to your wife, sir, to you, to your family.
But you said, to get to the bottom of it-how long does it take to get to the bottom of it? America has all the right to protect itself, but not by incriminating innocent people like my husband, sir.
He is innocent. He is innocent. I am innocent. I have an American son. What do I tell him? What do I answer him, sir?
DONAHUE: Yes, seven months, you know, it does seem a little Third World. Seven months. How long does he twist there until we...
MORABITO: Bring my wife back and we can talk about it. Bring the 3,000 people that were murdered back and we can talk about it...
(CROSSTALK)
AL-RUSHAID: Why is my husband blamed for it?
DONAHUE: Why what, Mrs. Rushaid?
AL-RUSHAID: Why is my husband blamed for this?
MAY: Why doesn’t he talk to the authorities and answer their questions, ma’am? Just answer their question about an organization that the FBI, U.N. and then NATO believe is terrorist-connected. This is not so hard.
(CROSSTALK)
AL-RUSHAID: Let’s talk about democracy a little bit. Maybe this is the time for anybody who has any answer to give me the answer right now, put it on the table.
What do you have against my husband and against Global Relief Foundation? For heaven’s sake now, please.
(CROSSTALK)
GOODMAN: I would just like to say that 9/11 was sickening. It was a tragedy. Your loss is incompensible (ph). There’s no way that this can be returned. And my heart goes out to you, as well as-along with Mrs. Rushaid.
But that doesn’t justify violating the constitutional rights of thousands of really innocent people who wanted to be sent back and were held in jail for long periods of time who were willing to talk.
In fact, the FBI, the CIA and many federal agents had the information that was necessary to have prevented 9/11 without any violation of rights.
DONAHUE: Let me just show you the attorney general, John Ashcroft, before a congressional committee.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens against noncitizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Phantoms of lost liberty.
I thought that was an awfully harsh slap-down of Americans who have sincere misgivings about what may be happening to people...
MAY: Would you like to see Jose Padilla released tomorrow? And if he was, and there was another terrorist attack, what would you come here on this show and say?
We want to know what he knows about the next terrorist attack. He was trying to make a dirty bomb to kill Americans.
GOODMAN: I’d like to see Jose Padilla charged with a crime if he’s guilty a crime. And if he’s not, then they have to release him. That’s what the Constitution requires. And if I say that, I’m going to be the next one arrested, and then him, and then him, and then maybe even you.
MAY: oh, that’s absolute nonsense.
By the way, you work for an organization that I understand has a...
GOODMAN: Here goes the...
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Is that true or not? Am I debating civil liberties with somebody who has a project named for a Soviet-Stalinist spy or not? Yes or no? Yes or no?
(CROSSTALK)
GOODMAN: What are we really talking about here?
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Mrs. Rushaid, can you hear me?
RUSHAID: Yes, I can hear you. I would like to say something.
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: You understand this passion, I’m sure. You need not be patronized.
MAY: I’d just like a yes or no. I hope I was misinformed that you have a project named for a Soviet spy, Alger Hiss, yes or no?
GOODMAN: I’m not going to-do I-this is absurd. Let me just say...
MAY: Of course you do. You’re ashamed to admit it.
GOODMAN: I am not ashamed to admit it.
MAY: Admit it. Admit it.
DONAHUE: Mrs. Rushaid, I don’t want to leave you without the opportunity to-I found your dialogue with the loved one of a wife who was on a plane of 9/11 to be very meaningful. I think you both would like to somehow come to some peace and agreement with each other. I’m not sure that’s possible.
AL-RUSHAID: Why not? It has to be possible. He looks like a very intelligent guy. He looks like a very peaceful guy. If he knows an innocent person, then he should have an opportunity to talk to that person and make sure that everything is OK.
I have not done anything. My husband has not done anything. I’m here to talk about my husband.
I just want to go back to clear something. When my husband was asked to go in front of the grand jury, he was yanked early in the morning from being so long in solitary confinement, sir. When somebody is in solitary confinement, his emotional state is terrible. The situation there was bad.
MAY: Ma’am, was he or was he not acquainted with...
(CROSSTALK)
AL-RUSHAID: No he was not. No he was not, sir. No, he was not.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: I made this up.
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Mark would probably...
AL-RUSHAID: Sir, again I say you look like a very intelligent guy. Please, do not believe everything you hear. Why don’t you pick up a phone and ask.
My husband did not know that guy. Am I supposed...
MAY: Wouldn’t answer the grand jury questions on that.
MORABITO: My question-I just have one question to your attorneys here. And I kind of missed it. But why does he want to speak with just immunity. What’s he hiding? I can’t figure...
(CROSSTALK)
AL-RUSHAID: Can I-I wanted to answer that, he didn’t give me a chance.
He had nothing to hide. It’s the mistrust. You took him out of solitary confinement at 4:00 a.m. and he was in very bad situation, very bad condition, and then you ask him to confront a jury and answer jury questions.
Well, all he said was, I will do anything you want, but after confining me as an innocent man, just give me immunity. Just give me any security that...
MORABITO: Immunity from what, though?
(CROSSTALK)
NUBANI: Immunity from nothing. The government has kept him in solitary confinement 23 hours out of the day when he was in Chicago. He had a slot in the door to which they would give him food. He would be handcuffed when he was taken to the shower three times a day...
(CROSSTALK)
MORABITO: ... people on the airliners and the people in the building didn’t have a choice.
(CROSSTALK)
MORABITO: ... so my philosophy is turn around and get the right answer from the right people. Immunity games and all this other-let’s get to the point. Answer the questions. If you can’t answer the questions, we’ll send you back.
NUBANI: Let’s talk about your hurt and what’s happened to your family and Pastor Rabih Haddad, his relationship to that.
Pastor Rabih Haddad, after September 11, condemned those attacks. He said that his heart and those of any Muslim and any American goes out to the family. And he did that before he was arrested. He had no foreknowledge that he would be arrested, and the government is holding an innocent man...
(CROSSTALK)
DONAHUE: Mrs. Rushaid, with very little time left, I feel very responsible to you-this is a very complicated time of your life-as I do to Mark.
How is your husband being treated in prison? Have you-you have no information about maltreatment, do you?
AL-RUSHAID: There is more than one kind of torture, sir. There’s physical, there’s emotional and there’s mental. My husband, thank God, he is not being tortured physically, but he is being tortured emotionally. He is deprived of so many things that-basic rights.
And I go back to Mr. May. Yes, there are so many rights that have been deprived and so many constitutional rights that have been taken away.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Do you agree he made a mistake by being here illegally, by working here illegally, by setting up this organization illegally? DO you agree that those are mistakes?
AL-RUSHAID: Sir, where are you getting this information from?
MAY: He was on a tourist visa. He had no right to work here. The tourist visa expired, he was here illegally.
We now have over 130 people in this country who are here illegally, ordered deported, we don’t know where they are.
DONAHUE: Cliff, thank you. I regret we are not able to have what we might consider to be a civil wrap-up of this.
We do have the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act. Upcoming in just a moment: Russ Feingold. And we’ll also hear from a United States senator who thinks the PATRIOT Act is a darn good idea.
We’ll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D), WISCONSIN: Preserving our freedom is one of the main reasons that we are now engaged in this new war on terrorism. We will lose that war without firing a shot if we sacrifice the liberties of the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Senator Feingold, sir. Well, one vote.
Well, how’s life been, let me just say, for you, since that one vote?
FEINGOLD: Well, my life is fine. My concern is the future of our country, our ability to fight terrorism, stop the terrorists and at the same time preserve our way of life.
DONAHUE: You were the only senator...
FEINGOLD: Not unduly sacrifice our civil liberties. And I’ve gotten a lot of support in my state and around the country from people on the left and the right and the middle who all know that we should not get carried away and do things that don’t relate to the terrorism problem.
That’s the problem of the USA PATRIOT Act. A lot of it didn’t even relate to terrorism.
DONAHUE: Please make that case. You voted no because?
FEINGOLD: Well, because a lot of the bill made sense. Having border patrols on the northern border, updating things, like getting after voicemails as well as wiretappings.
But there were other provisions, such as provisions allow the monitoring of computers of people who have done nothing wrong, not even a criminal conduct, let alone terrorism; allowing the police to what’s called sneak-and-peek searches without normal notice that accompanies a search warrant; allowing the-going into libraries and telling the librarians they have to give the lists of books and tapes that people have checked out who aren’t even being suspected for terrorism, even though they may have some incidental connection or some kind of casual contact with somebody who might have been involved.
All of these things, I think, are overkill, and threaten the liberties of individual Americans who wouldn’t even dream of doing anything to aid those who have tried to kill, and succeeded in some cases, in killing our people.
DONAHUE: You may have heard the observations of a husband who lost a wife. I just can’t imagine how you’re dealing with the numbers of people who feel that somehow-and the fact that you’re out there alone. This is a very remarkable moment, in my opinion, in the history of the United States Senate. I mean, stand up alone to, you know, to I thought civilly express your concern about our Constitution, our way of life, really.
This is a story to me.
FEINGOLD: Well, you know, it’s nice of you to portray me in this light. But the truth is, I wasn’t alone. Well over 60 members of the House voted against this. Even those who voted for it ultimately tried to undo some of these harmful things, such as Congressman James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
In the House they were really trying to come up with a package that everybody from Maxine Waters to Bob Barr could agree with, and it was my hope to vote for that package.
The trouble is, is that things got carried away in the Senate. The administration pushed, we sort of fell into this trap of allowing them to intimidate us into passing this bill without serious attention to amendments.
And Bob Novak said it well. He said, basically, that the wish list-old wish list of the FBI got stuffed into this bill, which otherwise may have made a lot of sense, and in many ways did make sense, to fight terrorism.
That’s what happened. And I’ve received overwhelming support from editorial boards in Wisconsin, individuals. I think the feeling in this country about protecting our civil liberties is alive and well. It’s just that people can’t really find out what’s being done right now because so much of this is secret. And that’s one of my great concerns.
DONAHUE: Right.
Let me show you another clip of Attorney General Ashcroft in his appearance before the-I believe it was a Senate committee.
Here is the A.G. speaking about the PATRIOT Act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHCROFT: All persons being detained have the right to contact their lawyers and their families. Our respect for their privacy and concern for saving lives motivates us not to publicize the names of those detained.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DONAHUE: Do all detainees have a right to a lawyer?
FEINGOLD: I think that’s unclear and, I think, second only to Attorney General Ashcroft’s outrageous remarks that said that anybody who questions these things was sort of questioning-hurting the American effort against terrorism.
These actions that have been taken with regard to the detainees have been very, very insufficient. They detained over 1,200 people. We don’t know for sure if they all have lawyers. I’ll tell you this: We’ve never been given the names of all the people. We don’t know what they’ve been charged with.
We do know this: Not a single one of the 1,200 has been charged with terrorist activity. And yet over 400 of them have been deported.
Now these are people that maybe, of course, have some kind of minor immigration violations, but that wasn’t the basis on which they were dragged in. They were dragged in on the basis that they had something to do with terrorism.
And so I’m very disappointed with the refusal of the Justice Department to give us the most basic information about who these people are, why they’re there, why they are there so long.
And I think the guests that you had on this show had a good point:
that there are serious abuses of civil liberties of people who did absolutely nothing wrong with regard to this terrorism issue, and that it’s something that the Justice Department and the bush administration should account for.
DONAHUE: I have only seconds left.
Are there senators in the hallway kind of giving you a backslap there, off-camera?
FEINGOLD: Well, I’ll tell you this, when I brought up my amendments, there were a number of senators who stood with me on the key amendments, who spoke up on them.
DONAHUE: Fifteen seconds.
FEINGOLD: We were a very small group, but the group will grow as we find out that problems that will come from the intrusions on the rights of individual Americans who have done nothing wrong, and who just as much as everyone else want to fight terrorism.
DONAHUE: Thank you Senator Feingold.
Senator Kyl of Arizona next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DONAHUE: Senator Jon Kyl from the State of Arizona believes the PATRIOT Act is an important safeguard for national security.
We welcome you, Senator Kyl.
You were certainly in the majority. You and 98 of your fellow senators voted for the PATRIOT Act.
I’m sure you have respect for Senator Feingold and his courage in standing alone.
SEN. JON KYL ®, ARIZONA: I do indeed, Phil.
Senator Feingold is a serious senator who asks good questions. I guess I would disagree with him in one regard, and that is to suggest that liberal stalwarts like Senator Pat Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, or Ted Kennedy, who also sits on the committee with both Senator Feingold and I, to suggest that they were somehow bludgeoned into approving or voting for this legislation by the attorney general or the Bush administration does stretch reality a bit. These are tough senators who weigh things carefully, and vote their conscience.
And I think the fact that it was 99 to 1 suggests that the clear majority of legal thought is that the act is constitutional.
DONAHUE: Is-are all these provisions necessary? And are they going to make us safer?
Aside from the civil liberties issues here, is it working?
KYL: You know, it’s too soon to tell in some respects. And certainly the PATRIOT Act is not the be-all and end-all. It’s not going to be the answer on to the war on terrorism.
But as long ago as about 1998 or 1999, the then-Attorney General Louis Freeh was calling for some of the provisions that are now in the USA PATRIOT Act as a way of fighting terror. And they were really mere extensions of existing law that we use to fight common criminals to apply to the terrorist context.
And so we’re hoping that they’ll work, that they’ll be successful. I do think it’s clear that they’ll be ruled constitutional if they’re ever challenged.
DONAHUE: Right.
Today’s announcement by the president, some of the talking heads wonder if we’re not being called just to spy on each other. The meter maid is going to have to check this or that. You want to take a good look at the person in the next seat.
You’re not concerned that we’re kind of promoting anxiety and worry and sleeplessness here?
KYL: I don’t think so. There’s-you know Americans, I think, have a pretty good history of living our life and letting live.
But it’s interesting in Tucson, Arizona, my state, that citizen observations that were then passed on to law enforcement were responsible for the two major investigations of the terrorist-related activities in Tucson. Citizens were alert, they saw something that didn’t look quite right, and they passed it on, and it was a good thing that they did.
So I think that a little bit of this is in order, but I don’t think you’re going to find Americans spying on Americans.
DONAHUE: I understand that the PATRIOT Act allows the government to explore my borrowing activity at the library without my knowing about it.
KYL: I’m not sure. I heard Senator Feingold mention something about that. I’m not sure under what provision that would be done.
But I did want to correct something else. It doesn’t permit the government to be looking into the messages that you send or receive on your computer any more than they can do that on a telephone: without a court-ordered wiretap.
What you can do is to find out what numbers you call on the telephone and how long the calls last, but nothing about content. And the PATRIOT Act applies the same thing to the use of the computer.
DONAHUE: But computers-so computers-but computer searches can happen routinely without the knowledge of the computer owner, isn’t that so?
KYL: Well, with respect to public information-that is, information about which there’s no expectation of privacy, you can search Web sites and find out who’s talking about making a bomb, for example. That’s permitted.
But you could also-the law enforcement can also do something else. They can find out what numbers, in effect, you’re calling up on your computer, what sites you’re accessing, just as they can find out what telephone numbers you’re calling.
What they can’t do is get into the content of any messages that you send or receive.
DONAHUE: You may have heard me quote James Madison. I’ll return to him: “Those who would sacrifice freedom for security will get neither.”
You don’t think so?
KYL: No, I agree with it. But I don’t think that we are, to an unreasonable degree, sacrificing anything here.
You can have both security and freedom. We’ve demonstrated that over 200-plus years of existence in this country better than any place on the earth. And I think that with our court system and our adherence to the Constitution and all the watchdog groups and everything else, we’ll continue to do a balanced job of that.
DONAHUE: Is this ongoing? Is this indefinite? I mean, it’s only the Bill of the Rights. It’s the subject of all those essays at those Rotary Club luncheons. We give awards for this. And now suddenly we’re anxious and, you know, don’t sweat these liberties.
I’m one American, and I realize this is probably an unpopular position, who feels very, very troubled by the facility with which we surrendered these protections.
KYL: Well, we didn’t surrender protections, Phil. That’s my point.
We aren’t even close to getting up next to the Constitution...
DONAHUE: I regret-I threw you that long pass with no time to answer.
KYL: All right.
DONAHUE: John Kyl of Arizona, thank you.
Chris Matthews is next. Thank you for watching.
END
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