Minnesota ACLU Gets Religion

This is one time the ACLU is on the right side of things.

The Minnesota ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit against the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, “named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain,” the taxpayer-funded charter school operating as a private Muslim religious school. (“ACLU to sue Twin Cities charter school that caters to Muslims”).

You can read the Complaint here.

Besides requiring Islamic dress, serving halal food in the cafeteria, scheduling prayers during class times, and arranging the bus schedule so that students more or less have to attend Islamic religious classes at the end of each schoolday, “the school has issued a handbook instructing staff to not discuss what goes on at the school.” Charles Samuelson, state ACLU executive director, points out that “’You cannot have a broad secrecy oath’ in a school funded with public dollars.’”

Samuelson said the school has used some government aid money to pay rent to holding companies, which then funneled it to the Muslim American Society of Minnesota and Minnesota Education Trust, a group the ACLU says is a non-profit that also promotes Islam.

The MAS is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. As we have noted here time and again, the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood includes “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” And the school’s sponsor, Islamic Relief—USA, is a subsidiary of Islamic Relief Worldwide, which the Israeli government has identified as providing support and relief to Hamas.

According to Katherine Kersten, who broke this story early last year:

TIZA’s strong religious connections date from its founding in 2003. Its co-founders, Zaman and Hesham Hussein, were both imams, or Muslim religious leaders, as well as leaders of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN).

Since then, they have played dual roles: Zaman as TIZA’s principal and the current vice-president of MAS-MN, and Hussein as TIZA’s school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January.

TIZA shares MAS-MN’s headquarters building, along with a mosque.

MAS-MN came to Minnesotans’ attention in 2006, when it issued a “fatwa,” warning Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that transporting passengers with alcohol in their baggage is a violation of Islamic law.

According to Kersten, and representatives of the ACLU, TIZA officials were evasive and squirrely about claiming to be in compliance with all state laws, when they clearly weren’t. They also dragged their feet when asked to make changes.

If this were a private religious school, none of this would matter to us. For that matter, I'm personally not that enamored with the current regime where voluntary religious activity and expression is completely eliminated from public schools.

Nonetheless, and in large part because of groups like the ACLU, that is the strict standard that everyone else—especially the majority Christian population—have been forced to accept. A double standard can’t be applied just for Muslims.

This isn’t just a misunderstanding. These scalawags knew perfectly well they were flouting the law, and taking taxpayer money to spread and finance Islam, to boot. I’m thinking they also had a pretty good idea that since they were Muslim there would be a “fear factor” preventing state authorities from taking too much notice. In other words, the whole thing followed standard operating procedure for people imposing creeping shariah.

The ACLU has applied a much, much lower standard when making cases against Christians. At least in this case, when the abuse was egregious enough, ACLU-MN did the right thing. I’m not sure ACLU-MI ever would.

An Open Letter to Osama's Number 2 (With Apologies to Toilet-Training Toddlers Everywhere)

Look here, Mr. Zawahiri, a lot of us were able to overlook that whole 9/11 thing. That was probably understandable, what with us helping Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from being overrun by Saddam Hussein, and what with us being infidels and little Eichmans, not to mention all the rest of your group’s very valid criticisms of our nation.

But calling our new president a “house negro”? (“Al-Qaida's No. 2 insults Obama”). Saying our Messiah isn’t as cool as Malik al-Shabazz (Malcolm X)?

This is 2008 America, pal, and those are fighting words.

From here out there’ll be no more ineffective unilateral cowboy diplomacy. Now you're going to have a mess of groups mad at you, instead of only Dick Cheney and George Bush. To start with, Rev. Al Sharpton, who happens to have a worldwide copyright on the term “house negro”©, (along with such equally valuable expressions as “No Justice”© and “No Peace”©).



The intellectual property litigation alone is going to make your boss wished he's stayed in Saudi Arabia building 10-car garages .

My point is, if you thought Obama’s campaign threats to hunt you and Osama down were scary, just wait until the ACLU gets the case.

Trust me. If there’s anyone who can zero in on people with strong religious views and drop a bomb on them--no matter how well hidden you are--it’s those cats.

May Allah have mercy on you, 'cause I wouldn't give a potful of number 2 for your chances now.

Even ACLU-MN Sees the Problem In Minneapolis

This update thanks to Act! for America.

It looks as though, based upon the article by Katherine Kersten at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about the public charter school being operated--and advertised-as an Islamic academy ("Establishing Islam in Minnesota")--the Minnesota ACLU is taking a closer look at the situation for possible violations of the Establishment Clause:

ACLU-MN opens investigation of Tarek Academy For Immediate Release
March 18, 2008

After receiving complaints that Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights is violating the Establishment Clause the ACLU-MN sent a letter to the academy questioning their practices. In the letter that was sent the ACLU-MN questions some of their practices, including addressing allegations that the school sponsors prayer.

Teresa Nelson, an attorney for the ACLU of Minnesota, says "We currently do not have enough facts to state whether or not the school is in violation of the establishment clause. The American Civil Liberties Union is a strong defender of separation of church and state and will take action if we find they are violating the establishment clause."

You can also read the letter that was sent to Tarek Academy.

The letter the ACLU sent to the principal is worth looking over. It gives more details of how the Tarek Academy is being run.

The ACLU-MN's quick response leades me to believe they must be more right-wing and homophobic than our chapter here in Michigan.

Who'd a thunk it?

Walid Catches More Flak for the ACLU

On August 28 the Detroit News ran an opinion column by Bishop Keith Butler, pastor of the Word of Faith International Christian Center in Southfield.

In his column (“Provide religious liberty, justice for all”), Butler criticizes the ACLU for its recent duck-and-cover memo on the Islamic footbaths being installed at the University of Michigan--Dearborn at public expense.

Noting the inconsistency of the ACLU’s historical intolerance for prayers at public school graduations, Nativity scenes, and Christian clubs in high schools, Butler finds it remarkable how “their voices are muffled regarding the University of Michigan Dearborn campus decision to install foot baths for Muslim students to wash their feet before prayer or the extra recess period granted in one San Diego school for Muslim students to pray.”

Butler can’t help making the obvious deduction:

“The ACLU supports religious expression with government money for some, but not for Christians.”

Today’s response in the Detroit News ("Footbaths at U-M Dearborn are reasonable"), by CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid repeats, for the umpteenth time, his shopworn assertion that the “university installing ‘footbaths’ for safety reasons with student activity funds and Muslims bringing rugs for prayer hardly constitutes promoting Islam over other faiths.”

Walid is the point man for the UM, the MSA, the ACLU, the “Muslim community,” and every other interested party that holds some kind of stake in the progress of Dawah on the UM’s Dearborn campus. Criticize the University, Walid responds. Criticize the MSA, Walid responds. Criticize the ACLU, Walid responds. Think of him as the yappy Jack Russell who charges from under his porch at any rustle of Islamophobic footsteps.

People can judge for themselves whether Keith Butler or Walid has the better argument. But if you want to know how Walid really grinds his mental gears you need to check out his website for the short preface he wrote linking his Detroit News "rebuttal "to his site. Walid can be a bit more candid on his own website, as he has very few readers, and doesn't allow any comments responding to anything he says. He writes: On his own site he dismissed Butler this way:

Mr. Butler, a well known black evangelical, conservative clergy, advertises his ties to John Hagee, an Islamophobic pastor, who was recently featured on CNN's "God's Christian Warriors" for his radical views regarding the return of the Messiah and supporting Israel.

Given this well-known background regarding Mr. Butler in the African-American community in Metro Detroit, his skewed views in his op-ed on August 29 regarding the U of M-Dearborn "footbath" saga was no surprise to anyone.

That’s clear enough, isn’t it? Keith Butler’s “well-known background” explains his “skewed views in his op-ed.”

Except excuse me, Dawud, isn’t it your job to explain how and where Butler’s views are skewed, (if they are), rather than simply launching a personal name-calling attack?
Isn't that why it's called a "rebuttal"?

Walid, Ibrahim Hooper, and these other CAIR flaks are all the same. They simply don't known anything else but dirty fighting, like those schoolyard punks who couldn’t have their dukes up ten seconds before they started trying to kick you, spit on you, or bite you.

CAIR Public Relations 101 demands that every CAIR spokesman, under all circumstances, must trot out the term “Islamophobic” absolutely no later than the middle of his first sentence, regardless of whether it makes any sense. (In fact, it should never make sense).

In this case, the closest Walid could get was to associate Butler with John Hagee, “an Islamophobic pastor,” (although actually Hagee just happens to support Israel).

Keith Butler is one of the most prominent, well-respected, and formidable clergymen and public figures in the Detroit area. In 1989 he ran for, and won by an overwhelming margin, a seat on the Detroit City Council, making him the first (and last) Republican to win a Council seat in hopelessly Democratic Detroit since before World War II. He distinguished himself by serving served a full term without being exposed as a crook, a liar, or a nincompoop. He helped write the 1992 Republic national platform, and the first President Bush made Butler deputy chair of the Republican National Convention.

And, unlike far too many publicly successful urban pastors in the Detroit area, Butler’s ministry has never been stained with rumors of sexual misbehavior, or venal toadying up to the Democratic public-money machines.

If the ACLU felt so confident of their position, they've got plenty of facile spokespersons who could have answered Butler. But I don’t believe they do feel so confident. So instead they just turned Walid loose.

I think they’re hoping Walid’s yap-yap-yapping will drown everything out.

The ACLU Has Got To Be Kidding

After a long delay, the ACLU of Michigan has finally released its position statement on the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s decision to install ritual foot baths for Muslim students.

In the statement , the ACLU admits that "spending public funds for items that were designed primarily to facilitate a religious practice raises red flags,” and that, after an analysis of the “facts,” they "remain troubled by the fact that the footbaths, which are permanent features, will probably be used primarily by Muslim students, and only incidentally by others.”

But in spite of being troubled by the sight of all those red flags, the ACLU refuses to challenge the decision by the University.

Why? Because, as the ACLU is now claiming, the University’s decision “was motivated primarily by concerns for health and safety”; otherwise, “[w]ere those reasons not present, this form of governmental support for one religion would be highly objectionable” to the ACLU.

And so we are to believe that what would otherwise be highly objectionable is neutralized by calling it a hygiene issue.

Now, the ACLU knows perfectly well that a critical legal test applied by courts to suspect government actions is not whether or not it entails safety and cleanliness, but whether or not the action’s principal or primary effect either advances or inhibits religion.

To get around this in the UM footbath case, in which the principal effect of the University's decision to advance the religion if Islam sticks out a mile, the ACLU claims the key issue is actually enshrouded in a dense fog of doubt: “it is not clear," writes the ACLU, “"that the installation of the footbaths has the principal effect of promoting religion.”

It isn't? And how can it be unclear? “[B]ecause Muslim students will continue to wash their feet in the sink before praying if another viable alternative is not provided. It appears that the principal effect is to make an activity that is already occurring safer and cleaner for all students.”

Notice how, when describing the all-important "principal effect," the ACLU coyly reinforces the good old American qualities of "safer and cleaner" (and "for all students," no less!), while obscuring behind a meaningless undefined term (it's only "an activity"), what it is exactly that is being made safer and cleaner. What's being made safer and cleaner is a religious, ritual activity being practiced only by Muslim students and staff.

The ACLU’s statement also attaches a secondary article by Jeremy Gunn, Director of the National ACLU Program in Freedom of Religion and Belief. In his short piece Gunn attempts to justify the footbaths as a neutral accommodation by explaining that the ritual baths, as mere physical objects, are in themsleves “not religious,” the way, say, a crucifix or a baptismal fount or a Torah is a religious object. This matches up nicely with the underlying statement's explanation that "the footbaths are not inherently religious facilities--they are not blessed, cannot be desecrated, and they are open to anyone for any purpose."

As Gunn writes,

Observant Muslims, when possible and practical before their prayers, will often try to wash their hands and feet. The basins in which hands and feet are washed are not of any ritual significance and are not religious objects. A sink in a restroom fulfills the function adequately.

But the point isn’t whether or not the “ablution stations” are religious objects with inherent religious significance. The point is that the ritual washing itself is a religious exercise, and one that, no doubt, poses a religious problem for practicing Muslims--a problem that the University now has taken upon itself to solve with public funds. The ACLU knows very well that government endorsement isn't limited to religious objects alone, but entails religious exercises of any kind, including speech, prayer, Bible reading, and even moments of silence.

In other words, this business of installing ablution stations is exactly the thing that, otherwise, always "raises red flags for the ACLU," (and still raises red flags for most Americans): "The spending of public funds for items that were designed primarily to facilitate a religious practice." In short, the University has left reasonable religious accommodation far behind, and has taken up the affirmative duty of guaranteeing its Muslim students can easily, "safely and cleanly," meet their religious duties.

(NOTE: Do not try this if you are Baptist, Catholic, Hindu, or...oh hell, don't try it if you are anything but Muslim).

Indeed, ACLU admits this foggy issue "would be simpler if the government was building religious facilities that had the clear purpose or effect of promoting religion"--as if that isn't exactly what's going on here!

In fact, the ACLU's own statement admits that "it is true that the footbaths were designed primarily to address the problem of Muslim students washing their feet in the sink," a practice made necessary because, as the statement also explains , Muslims "must wash their feet before praying five specific times during the day...three times with clean water and that new water must be used for each wash."

Since the University began its public song-and-dance about the footbaths we've been assured the purpose-built ritual wudu ablution stations work just as well for everything from washing babies(!) to providing foot-rinsing for lacrosse players, and "even janitors can use them to fill their washbuckets."

That's as may be, except we can't imagine why any of these persons would resort to footbaths when appropriate facilities already exist for college athletes (showers in the gym), janitors (slop sink in the janitor's closet); and if rest room sinks that have had feet in them are not safe and clean for other students to wash hands in, I can't imagine that showering a baby in a foot bath above a floor drain will exactly meet the University's "safer and cleaner" standard, either.

That the ACLU doesn’t believe its own phony analysis is evident in its explanation for why private funds couldn't be solicited to finance foot baths: because it would be seen as a “promotion of religion.” The ACLU statement says:

It is likely that the private funding would be donated by mosques or by those seeking to promote religion. If so, the University’s position that it was taking a practical approach to address cleanliness and safety problems, and not to promote religion, would be undermined. Additionally, such an approach would set a bad precedent when other religious institutions seek to donate money to promote their own religions.

So if the local mosques pony up to install ablution stations the “principal effect” is to promote religion. But if the University spends taxpayer/student money to do the exact same thing-- install ablution stations--the principal effect is to increase safety and cleanliness.

This is exactly how skilled lawyers can distinguish apples from oranges: "This thing here is an apple," they say, "unless you need an orange. In which case it's an orange."

And are we supposed to believe that the Muslim Student Association, that creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, ("Just What Is the MSA?") and CAIR, that unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-funding case, ("Is CAIR Really the 'Muslim NAACP'?) are not championing the footbaths as a promotion of Islam?

This is not a safety and cleanliness problem. If it were, the University has much more direct and simple solutions to the underlying cause of that problem, which is Muslim students misusing restroom facilities and leaving a mess behind. How big a problem can that really be if, as the University claims, it has been in discussions with the MSA for more than two years about this “problem”?

Nor does it help the ACLU's explanation that, as they say, "if the University refused to allow Muslim students to wash their feet in the sink absent a viable alternative, we would have concerns about whether the University was unconstitutionally interfering with the students' right to practice their religion."

Isn't this exactly the kind of Hobson's choice from Muslims we've all grown so weary of? "Allah commands us to perform wudu," we are told, "and if you don't pay to give us special sinks, we'll do it anyway in your rest rooms. If you try to stop us we'll call the ACLU and sue you for interfering with our right to practice our religion. Allahu akbar!"

Which makes me want to say to the ACLU: "Hey, guys, (and this includes you, too, Kary Moss), it's time to either wash, or get out of the sink!" Muslims ritually washing their feet in the rest room sink are either engaged in a religious practice or they aren't.

If they are, then UM laying out eighty large (that's accurate) in public money to facilitate that religious practice is one family-size red flag case of government entanglement. If it isn't, then the ACLU shouldn't have any 'concerns' about interfering with anyone's worship just because the University clamps down on people sticking their size tens into the hand basins.

As we noted months ago, (“The ACLU's Non-Aggression Pact with CAIR”), the ACLU already had decided to sit this one out, in spite of the glaring public endorsement of Islam it entails. This recent statement is a late, and half-hearted, stab at explainingto all their critics why they aren’t on the side of this issue they should be.

Are you buying it? Because we're not.

CAIR's Dawud Walid Explains the ACLU

Dawud Walid, local spokesman for CAIR Michigan, posted the following on his personal blog on Tuesday:

Revisiting the facts regarding "foot bath" controversy at U of M - Dearborn

Regarding the ongoing controversy about the scheduled installation of "foot baths" at the University of Michigan - Dearborn, I'd like to present the following facts:

Fact #1 - The installation of the foot baths at the University of Michigan - Dearborn in two unisex bathrooms are not Muslim only bathrooms. They are open to the entire public regardless of their gender or religion.

Fact #2 - Safety modifications are frequently made in public areas when the need arises. The university cannot legally say that no one can wash their feet for prayer or any other reason. Having people wash their feet in high traffic bathrooms causing the floor to get wet presents a safety hazard to all that enter.

Fact #3 - Most people get grossed out seeing someone washing their feet in a face bowl. For hygiene purposes, people would shy away from using a face bowl where someone just washed their feet in it.

Fact #4 - Public educational institutions factor in religious needs all the time. Although masked in non-religious language, schools close during Christmas and Easter time because it would not be feasible to leave the schools open when a vast majority of the students are going to be absent. In the Philadelphia and New York City, schools are closed for Yom Kippur for the same reason, right? If any district or university has a sizeable religious population outside of these two, should they not be accomodated as well?

The ACLU's position of not fighting the foot bath issue is based upon facts #1 and #2.

The hypocrisy of the whole situation, however, resides in fact #4. The loudest voices against the "footh bath" situation are themselves fundamentalists within their own faiths, bordering on being zealots. Their Islamophobic rhetoric is veiled under the guise of separation of church and state. The zealots, however, have no problem with their faiths being accommodated [sic].

You may recall that director of the Michigan ACLU, Kary Moss, took a vain stab at defending the foot baths (which are being built purposely top facilitate Muslims’ prayers), as being a “reasonable accommodation,” and "an attempt to deal with a problem, not an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray."

Once the laughter died down, the Moss and ACLU had stopped talking. They were contacted recently for a July 10 CNSNews article, (“Mosque and State: Taxpayer Dollars, Time Devoted to Islam in Schools”), but declined to add anything until their “formal opinion” was issued on July 14.

Well, July 14 came and went, and there’s been no sign of any formal opinion, though we at DU have been anxiously looking for it, damned curious to see the ACLU’s reasoning.

Instead, what we get is Dawud Walid “revisiting” the controversy at his blog, even though a controversy requires a forum for discussion, and the local media has presented a united front against discussing this topic. For a summary of media discussion of this story since the one-day report 5 weeks ago, there is this:

[CUE CRICKET SOUNDS].

In Tuesday's post, Walid attempts to explain himself the ACLU’s decision not to fight the foot baths. But I find it hard to believe the ACLU would ever endorse his reasoning.

Walid repeats that the foot baths are not targeted to favor the Muslim students because they’ll be “open to the entire public regardless of their gender or religion.”

The ACLU knows, even if Walid doesn’t, that this isn’t the standard that applies. The ACLU still battles nativity scenes, portraits of Jesus Christ, and replicas of the Ten Commandments in public places, even when “the entire public” is welcome to look at them, not just Christians. The point isn’t whether the suspect government action is open to all, it’s whether or not the government action endorses a particular religion.

As it does, for instance, in constructing purpose-built Muslim foot baths.

Nor are we buying Walid’s attempt to categorize the installation of ritual foot baths as “safety modifications frequently made in public areas when the need arises.”

This is either a religious accommodation, or it is a safety issue, but not both. The foot baths don’t compare to handicap toilets or wheelchair ramps. No one ever suggested the rest room sinks weren’t safe for washing faces and hands. If people washing their feet in busy rest rooms is a safety hazard (likely), then the University can remedy the problem by posting signs forbidding the practice.

It’s true, as Walid says, that the University “cannot legally say that no one can wash their feet for prayer or any other reason.” But that doesn’t mean the University can’t intervene to stop an unsafe, unhygienic, and irritating practice in student rest rooms. They can say you can't wash your feet in the handbowls, especially if it's not safe. They enforce the smoking ban, don’t they?

Yet Walid is just stuck on the notion that, if the government doesn’t provide people the means to “wash their feet for prayer,” then the government is actually forbidding people from practicing their religion.

I’m having trouble believing the legal eagles at the ACLU provided Walid with these talking points. But if they did, I’m not surprised they’ve been unwilling to include them in their own “formal opinion.”

Walid, as always, ends his remarks by attacking critics of the foot baths, "the loudest voices," as Islamophobes, in this case presuming to understand our inner characters as "fundamentalists...bordering on zealots."

I don't know how he can say we're the loudest voices, when even though we've tried to be loud, no one can hear a thing we're saying. As for whether or not I'm a fundamentalist, he has no way of knowing that, anyway. Nor do I think Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which tends to agree with us, (on this one at least), is a "fundamentalist" organization.

Is this really what the ACLU has in mind?

Media's Domestic Lying Program Still Going Strong

Lately I keep having a recurring dream in which I pick up my local newspaper and read a headline like: “Americans Fear Lack of Government Snooping on Terrorists Will Lead to Some of Us Getting Blown Up”. Then beneath this lengthy headline I am treated to an incisive and well-written analysis of how many Americans find “troubling” or “disturbing” that their government is carelessly neglecting, or even resisting, making an effort needed to hunt down, infiltrate, and intercept, some very determined bad guys who want us all dead.

The article goes on to describe how, in response to this trend of citizen anger, the government begins to wake up and get serious about hunting down the bad guys, aggressively, without putting theoretical worries about terrorists' civil rights above the rights and lives of our own citizens.

Then I always wake up laughing at such a ridiciuous a dream. Even if such a thing ever happened, (it just might after our next 9/11), the papers wouldn't report it.

What I find in the real, waking world are articles like today’s “Court ruling stirs fear of secret spying”, on the front page of the Detroit News.

The article, by the News's Muslim Affairs correspondent Gregg Krupa, reports dismayed reactions to yesterday’s ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the one that reversed the awful decision of US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that ordered an injunction against the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). According to the article no one was happy about the ruling except some joker from the Department of Justice. No one from the News asked me if I liked it. I did like it. I liked it a lot.

Anyhow, instead of waking up to my dream article where everybody is worried that we aren't connecting the dots, I see just another story about how our civil rights are more threatened by Dick Cheney than by those guys with their suicide belts and their Korans. And the dots just go unconnected.

The people who control the American press, who are primarily liberals, and either ideologically committed to resisting anti-jihadist activities, or else just terrified of being called Islamophobic, are never going to report on this story fairly. They did not approve of the TSP from the outset, they consistently misreported the facts about it, and they always refer to the program, falsely, as a “domestic spying program.” And even though they knew Judge Taylor’s opinion was bad law, badly written, and certainly doomed to be overturned on appeal, (as it was yesterday), they felt they had to sign on to it as a blow for freedom and the First Amendment.

And now that it's been reversed by grown-up judges, the reporters have to defend it.

The truth is that the TSP, besides being a great idea, only ever monitored international communications, that is, communications to people outside the US, or calling or emailing into the US from foreign soil. There is nothing “domestic” about the program. Even all those critics unwittingly admitted as much when they kept insisting the TSP needed to be brought under the control of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: FISA deals exclusively with the gathering of foreign intelligence.

But has this ever stopped journalists from referring to the TSP as a “domestic spying program”? Or one that is targeted at “secret spying on citizens”? No, because such statements are inflammatory, and help create more enemies for George W. Bush.

Now Mr. Krupa shows he’s willing to get it all wrong, too, when he writes, (wrongly), that even the administration itself has come clean about all its unlawful domestic spying. Writes Krupa, “In several public statements, administration officials have said that the president has the right to order secret spying on citizens.”

Strangely, Mr. Krupa nowhere cites even one of the occasions of these alleged statements, nor who exactly was supposed to have made them.

I’ve followed this issue more closely that the average person, and I haven't heard about any such public statements by the administration--any statements that parrot, as Mr. Krupa parrots here, the left’s caricature of the TSP as the President having an unlimited “right to order secret spying on citizens.”

Rather, the administration’s statements on the TSP have been many, and are consistent.

For instance, on January 12, 2005 Alberto Gonzales said the following at a press conference:

"The President has authorized a program to engage in electronic surveillance of a particular kind, and this would be the intercepts of contents of communications where one of the -- one party to the communication is outside the United States. And this is a very important point -- people are running around saying that the United States is somehow spying on American citizens calling their neighbors. Very, very important to understand that one party to the communication has to be outside the United States.

"Another very important point to remember is that we have to have a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda."

Almost two year laters, on January 17th of this year, Gonzales’s letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee explained that the TSP was now being conducted under an authorization from the FISA court, re-iterating that the court order authorizes “the Government to target for collection international communications into or out of the United States where there is probable cause to believe that one of the communicants is a member of agent of al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization.”

Does that sound like an administration official claiming the "president has the right to order secret spying on citizens"?

The media’s repeated insinuation, including Mr. Krupa’s here, that the targets of the TSP surveillance are innocent US citizens, can only be intended to mislead the lazy readers, or the busy readers--that is, the average readers who make no effort to look beyond what they see in the paper--to believe that Gonzales, or other high administration officials, have on several occasions gone on record saying, “Shucks, now that you mention it, we are spying on innocent US citizens! And you know what else? We don’t care who knows it! Hissss!”

I can't believe any more that this kind of misleading writing is the result of journalistic accident or laziness. It is too much of a pattern. It is meant to disinform.

Another example is Mr. Krupa’s mischaracterization in today's article of why the plaintiffs lacked supporting evidence, in the form of information gathered by NSA surveillance, a lack of evidence which helped lead to dismissal of the ACLU case.

According to Mr. Krupa, “The administration's refusal to reveal information about the program was one reason the plaintiffs could not proceed, both judges said.”

Bunk. It isn’t true; not even close.

Neither judge said anything of the kind. What the judges stated, and explained in their opinions, was that any information obtained through TSP surveillance was privileged under the State Secrets Doctrine, which was invoked at the very beginning of the case by the NSA. The opinion makes clear that the ACLU and their co-plaintiffs did not even raise the issue of the NSA’s invocation of the State Secrets Doctrine in their appeal: even the ACLU wasn’t stupid enough to demand public release of secret NSA information on terrorists obtained through surveillance.

Yet Mr. Krupa writes as if to suggest that the Bush administration was asked for the information, and then stonewalled the court by “refusing” to turn it over.

This kind of thing is meant to create the impression that the ACLU case was dismissed unfairly as a result of the the White House's somehow cheating the plaintiffs and the judicial process by holding back information.

That, and Mr. Krupa, I'm afraid, is hoping to suggest a parallel with the collateral mythology of the President "defying" the US Congress in their endless demands for White House documents and testimony so Schumer and Conyers can "get to the bottom of" the Iraq war, or the firing of the US Attorneys, or the "illegal" domestic spying program of the NSA, etc,. etc., etc.

The First Amendment guarantee of a free press provides that newspapers have the right to engage in a certain amount of lying, especially if the lies are about public figures.

I'm not planning to sue anyone over it.

But I don't have to like it.

And I don't like it. I don't like it a lot.

Conyers and the NSA Lawsuit: Just Who's Politicizing Whom?

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, when he commented yesterday on the US Sixth Circuit decision reversing Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s ruling on the NSA surveillance program, admitted that the underlying lawsuit was still a success, because its entire purpose was political.

“The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, said, ‘the suit served its purpose.’

“’"Not only did it force the administration to now use some form of FISA court orders, but also it has strengthened our committee's claim to learn about the illegal program,’ Conyers said.” (“Court ruling stirs fear of secret spying”).

The only legitimate purpose of a federal lawsuit is to redress an actual violation of federal law that has injured an actual plaintiff.

Judge Anna Digg's Taylor's opinion was widely criticized, even by liberal law professors, as a poorly-reasoned hack job. I don't think anyone on the left was surpised when her decision was reversed. The Sixth Circuit handily determined that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, since they could not show any way in which they had actually been damaged by the NSA activities. In other words, as much as they may have disapproved of the NSA program, they weren't entitled to sue the United States over it.

So when Conyers says the ACLA lawsuit served its purpose in spite of being thrown out, it indicates the suit was never meant to serve a legitimate purpose in the federal court. It's clear now that the whole idea of the lawsuit, its actual purpose, was not to redress a valid legal wrong to actual plaintiffs, but to provide a political weapon to be used by Conyers and his congressional colleagues in their punitive investigations of the White House.

The lawsuit was a craven attempt by the Democratic Party to politicize the federal judiciary.

It may be remembered that the many-sided witch-hunt against Alberto Gonzales over the firing of the 8 US Attorneys is premised not on any violations of law. Instead, they are tenuosly premised on the White House having “politicized” the Department of Justice when it took into account political goals and factors when making employment decisions about political appointees.

Though you might not know it from hearing some of these distressed Democratic Congressmen, the Department of Justice is not a constitutionally separate branch of government, intended to be "independent" The DOJ doesn't, unlike the legislative or the judicial branches, enjoy freedom from interference from the executive branch. At the risk of repeating what should be obvious, the DOJ is a department of the executive branch, and its highest appointees are political presidential appointees, most especially the Attorney General, who sits on the President’s cabinet. That both the AG and the US Attorneys serve at the President’s will only makes sense.

Still, the only thing stopping Leahy, Schumer, and Conyers from accusing the President outright of violating the separation of powers by firing his own US Attorneys is how utterly stupid they all will look when media commentators, as they set to work unpacking such remarks, start asking the unavoidable questions about which branch of government the DOJ actually does belong to?

Since Democrats can't seriously accuse the President of overreaching outside his own branch of government, the next best thing is to repeatedly accusing him of exercising his executive prerogatives in an “inappropriate” way, for instance, by “politicizing” the Department of Justice.

They are doing the same thing now in complaining about the commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence, another lawful exercise of an absolute privilege that is established in the Constitution, and that Congress can never legitimately interfere with.

Chief Justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase held long ago that, "It is the intention of the Constitution that each of the great co- ordinate departments of the government-the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial-shall be, in its sphere, independent of the others. To the executive alone is intrusted the power of pardon; and it is granted without limit."

So the next best thing for the President's enemies is to criticize this particular decision as having "inappropriate" political motives--though whether it does or doesn't is utterly immaterial to the President's pardoning power. And thus Conyers himself wanted to be first out of the gate promising an investigation of whether the President has gone beyond the limits of his pardoning power--limits the Supreme Court has already said don't exist:

"House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan announced he will be holding a full committee hearing next Wednesday examining the use of presidential clemency. 'In light of yesterday's announcement by the President that he was commuting the prison sentence for Scooter Libby, it is imperative that Congress look into how such power may be abused,' Conyers said. " ("Conyers eyes probe").

How do you think that one's going to turn out? Of course there can be no abuse of executive power if it is exercised lawfully within the Constitutional bounds of the executive branch, as happened here, as well as in the matter of the fired US Attorneys.

And that doesn't mean Congress can't abuse their investigative powers by holding hearing after hearing after hearing attacking the executive for alleged illegal activity--activity that the Congressmen can neither identify nor produce a shred of evidence for. For an idea of how far this abuse has gone, consider, what Kimberley S. Strassel at WSJ Opinion Journal writes about it in"Anger Mismanagement":

"This crowd isn't nearly as interested in passing legislation as it is flooding the Beltway with subpoenas. By one count, the new Democratic Congress has held over 600 oversight hearings since assuming power. Given the Senate has only been in session 100 days (the House, 92 days), that works out to six hearings per day, or one every 1.5 hours. The bashing covers everything from wiretapping to President Bush's global warming science."

On the other hand, Congressman Conyers and his cohorts really are violating the separation of powers when they use the judicial branch--the one branch of the three that is supposed to remain strictly non-political--as nothing more than a means to force the executive branch to do Congress's bidding. They've done it by participating in a lawsuit that was frivolous by nature, and, as Conyers himself says, had the ulterior “purpose” of forcing the White House to confine its surveillance powers to within FISA-court limits, and to strengthen his own committee's leverage in prising documents out of the executive branch.

Both of these objects are nakedly, incontrovertibly, political. In fact, they are more political, and more overreaching, (because they explicitly reach another branch of government), than even the worse things Conyers and all his co-inquisitors have managed to dig up after all these months of nonstop investigations of the White House.

Nor do I think it wrong to infer there was prior cooperation between Conyers and the ACLU. Based on what he himself has said, he betrays a guilty knowledge of the true purpose of the ACLU suit, a purpose that had nothing to do with righting a legal wrong.

Conyers sounds satisfied with the dismissal, as if he expected it. I can believe he never believed this lawsuit would succeed serious legal review anyway is, (Judge Taylor's opinion was not serious)--a standard which is the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit. Frivolous or not, it had “served its purpose,” a purpose it can be reasonably concluded Conyers developed with the parties beforehand.

Had a Republican official in similar circumstances ever admitted that a federal lawsuit had been initiated with a bald political object like this, Conyers and Schumer would be baying for Congressional investigations. They'd demand to know how many communications that official had had with the parties in that lawsuit, what and how much they had discussed, and how far up and how far wide the network of political officials or operatives spread--intending to call each and every one of them to testify under oath--over and over again if necessary--and all beneath a Damocles sword of threats about perjury and contempt of Congress. And it would all happen in a context of press conferences and Sunday-morning appearances by Democrats crying “unlawful,” “misleading,” and “abuse of separation of powers.”

Of course nothing like this is going to happen, because of the whole double standard thing.

But the next time you see a sound bite from Schumer, Leahy, Conyers, or Pelosi complaining about presidential abuse of power and disrespect for the rule of law, remember who it is that thinks nothing of perverting the federal courts to gain political advantage over their enemies.

The ACLU's Non-Aggression Pact with CAIR

Dawud Walid, Executive Director of CAIR-Michigan, was making the rounds yesterday to WJR, the Detroit News, (“Muslims won't fund footbaths”), and on his own blog. (“Regarding funding of the "footbaths"). He was explaining the ACLU’s position on publicly-funded Muslim foot baths at UM-Dearborn.

Speaking to the Detroit News, he said that at one point CAIR “’was concerned a public outcry would cause the university to back down from the project.

"’If the ACLU had decided to take legal action against the UM-Dearborn, we probably would have called for the university to raise the funds privately, just so that the UM-Dearborn wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to defend its position against the ACLU,’ Walid said.”

This awfully curious comment raises several other questions for me.

First off, what’s CAIR got to do with any of this? Terry Gallagher, flak catcher for UM-Dearborn on this issue, told Debbie Schlussel that “the foot baths are the result of 'years of ongoing negotiations with the Muslim Student Association.'" In other words, the proposed foot baths are supposed to be a “reasonable accommodation” provided in response to requests for same by actual UM-Dearborn students. The MSA, a shady organization with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, is at least on its face a national student organization with a chapter at UM-Dearborn. But now it is turning out (and we’re all shocked, shocked) that CAIR is the outfit taking ownership for this whole thing. Ever since this received any press in early June, Dawud Walid has been doing almost all the talking.

Which only leads to our next question: Why does Dawud Walid and CAIR-Michigan presume to speak, not for the MSA and the Muslim students at UM-Dearborn, but for “the Muslim community” in its entirety? In addressing a secondary issue of whether or not area Muslims, instead of taxpayers, should be paying for the foot baths, Mr. Walid says on his blog (“Regarding funding of the "footbaths"), quote:

“The Muslim community has not stated that it would not fund the foot washing area. It would if need be.

“Since the school's position is that this is a public safety issue, which is not promoting one religion over others and that civil rights lawyers, Muslim and Non-Muslims, have informed us that the 'footbaths' being built with student activity fees is not unconstitutional, the need to privately fund the 'footbaths' does not appear to be incumbent.”

In spite of last week’s embarrassing revelations that CAIR has dwindled 90% down to only 1,700 paying members, CAIR still doesn't hesitate to speak for the entire Muslim community. (1,700 is CAIR's nation-wide membership, by the way. We don’t even know how few actually belong in Michigan, besides Dawud Walid). No matter. He seems to think there’s enough to entitle him to speak for all Muslims.

Our next question is, Why is it that Mr. Walid, CAIR, and “the Muslim community,” are all so confident of the legality of their demands for foot baths, simply because the ACLU says so? Isn’t it the American judicial system that makes determinations over whether a given action is constitutional or not?

Yes, indeed, but that’s only if someone files a legal action and forces the point, which is not always as easy as it sounds. And as far as Mr. Walid, the MSA, and CAIR seem to be concerned, the only potential party in this country who ever gets to file suits torpedoing other people's religious expressions or accommodations is the ACLU--and for some odd reason they aren’t interested in this one. In fact, their commentary on the matter has been laughable. Kary Moss, director of the Detroit branch of the ACLU, sloughed off the whole question of the foot baths by claiming the ACLU views "it as an attempt to deal with a problem, not an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray."

There really isn't any question any more that this is all intended to make it easier for Muslims to pray; Dawud Walid, Tarek Baydoun, and every other advocate of the idea wittingly or unwittingly admits as much every time they comment on the subject.

But it's wondrous to see how the eagle-eyed defenders of the First Amendment at the ACLU can overlook an 800-pound gorilla if they simply choose to "view it as...a problem," rather than "view it...as an attempt to make it easier for Muslims to pray." Imagine if they chose to view intelligent design in public schools as an "attempt to deal with a problem" of inconsistencies within classical Darwinian evolution. You know: intelligent design's not a religious thing, it's an education thing.

For all that, one of Ms. Moss's colleagues in keeping religion out of public space, Hal Downs from the Michigan chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, disagrees with Kary Moss on the legality of the foot baths, telling the Detroit News that the Muslim advocates for the foot baths have "got a problem, because it's public money they're using to pay for this."

Which is only common sense, now, isn't it?

Except that neither CAIR, nor the MSA, nor even UM-Dearborn gives a damn if this is constitutional or not. Their only concern has ever been whether or not, all things considered, they can just get away with it.

All things considered, that is, meaning a University decision made in the shadows without public comment, a compliant press playing see-no-evil, and the most potent civil-rights advocacy group neutralized in advance by a non-aggression pact with CAIR, motivated by who-knows-what collateral advantage the ACLU hopes to obtain in return.

The proof of it is when Mr. Walid admits to the Detroit News:

"If the ACLU had decided to take legal action against the UM-Dearborn, we probably would have called for the university to raise the funds privately, just so that the UM-Dearborn wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to defend its position against the ACLU.”

In effect saying, "if the ACLU isn’t going to drag us into court on this one, we couldn’t care less who else doesn’t like it."

Are you starting to get the feeling this whole thing has been rigged? Are you starting to feel taken advantage of? (Those questions are for you reading this, not for Dawud Walid).

Still I've got one more for him. The whole point of national CAIR, allegedly, is to “advocate for justice and mutual understanding,” and CAIR-Michigan states its mission is to "promote...the image of Muslims."

So the question is, How is forcing unwilling taxpayers to fund Islamic foot baths going to contribute to mutual understanding and promoting a favorable image of Muslims?

Mr. Walid never claims that the Islamic community, hundreds of thousands strong in this area, and by no means, in the aggregate, impoverished, is too poor to take on this expense themselves. Instead, he just says they're only going to pay for the UM foot baths if they have to. And they will only have to if they can’t get the public to pay the bill for them; and that's going to happen, for all practical purposes, only if the ACLU fights them on this. To wit, Mr. Walid says:

“Since the school's position is that this is a public safety issue, which is not promoting one religion over others and that civil rights lawyers, Muslim and Non-Muslims, have informed us that the 'footbaths' being built with student activity fees is not unconstitutional, the need to privately fund the 'footbaths' does not appear to be incumbent.”

Not incumbent? How about this for an alternative to not incumbent: it is incumbent for PR that the Muslim community doesn't once again stick its finger in the eye of the nonMuslim community CAIR and the rest are always claiming they want to build bridges to. Wouldn't it be a damned sight better for the Muslim community--the same community Mr. Walid and his cohorts at CAIR are endlessly telling us is so misunderstood and unappreciated by America’s nonMuslims--to at least offer to take this on themselves?

But in the end, they won't bother. This was never about building bridges or promoting image. It's about gaining one victory at a time. It's about jihad, inch by inch.

And the arithmetic is all on their side.

One unaccountable public official
minus
one watchful press
minus
zealous legal scrutiny
equals
you and me paying somone else's freight bills to Paradise.

And that's just how easy it is to turn an 800-pound gorilla into a problem solved.