Over 50 people gathered together in Highland Park's Free Speech Park on a cold, cloudy Veteran's Day this year to dedicate a new exhibit that mourns the death of our Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, & the Geneva Convention. The exhibit is sponsored by the North Shore Women for Peace, a local Illinois organization that is 50 years strong in living their motto: "Working for peace, justice & a healthy planet."
The weather was indicative of the moods & mixed emotions shared by many that day. The short bursts of sunlight through the overcast clouds mirrored the hope we have for our country & our world, as a result of the mid-term elections. The cold & clouds reminded us that we are still a country that is in the midst of an unjust war, a country whose soldiers are dying & being wounded daily, a country that bears responsibility for the death & destruction of Iraq & many of its citizens. We're a country that is damaged from 6 years of misguided foreign policy & attacks on our Constitution and civil liberties. We have many wounds to heal among ourselves & with others in the world.
Vicki Bailyn, a key member of the North Shore Women for Peace, was cautiously optimistic that we will now have "fresh eyes" in our government. Her warning of "Be careful what's happening to America" was one of encouragement & hope that people will now step forward & raise their voices because there's a chance of getting Congress's attention. Vicki also said, "It isn't just the war, which is a key issue & will be until our soldiers are home, taken care of, and working. It's justice. No justice, no peace."
Tom McMenamin, a business attorney & concerned citizen of Highland Park who has one brother in Afghanistan and one brother in Kuwait, was the invited guest speaker. With the fanfare of the final few bars of our national anthem played on the trumpet as an introduction, Tom delivered this powerful speech. (Speech provided with permission from author.)
I would like to thank North Shore Women for Peace for assembling this exhibit in the Free Speech Park in Highland Park's downtown. As all can see, the exhibit consists of three tombstones representing the current attacks on Habeas Corpus, our Bill of Rights and the Geneva Convention.
I would also like to thank North Shore Women for Peace for organizing today's event and for inviting me to speak.
But as I told these valiant and gutsy women when they extended their invitation--and as I warn you now--I am not a great constitutional scholar, I am not an internationally known human rights advocate, I am not a hotshot criminal defense lawyer. I am just a business lawyer and, like many of you, a resident of Highland Park. But I accepted the invitation today because I am a concerned US citizen. And I am here today at the indirect urging of the President of the largest legal professional group in the world, the American Bar Association ("ABA").
In his last two letters to the more than 1,000,000 ABA members before stepping down this summer, the ABA President, Michael Greco, reviewed the current attacks by political forces in this country on the independence of the legal profession and our judiciary, as well as on our core legal rights and principles. He referred to recently enacted federal bankruptcy laws that limit or burden the role of lawyers in representing debtors. He wrote of the attacks by political extremists against our independent judiciary under the guise of the myth of "judicial activism". He mentioned the attempts by religious conservatives to limit the jurisdiction of courts over certain matters. He described the attempts by the Administration to undercut long-standing American judicial principles.
The ABA President called these attacks "direct assaults on our justice system and our democracy" and he urged "all Americans, particularly lawyers, to oppose this insidious trend with every ounce of our might."
This morning, as part of our November 11th Veteran Days' activities, our town dedicated across the street a beautiful new memorial, honoring our fellow Highland Park citizens who died protecting our beloved country. It is not just the conduct of these men and women that we honor and respect with our memorial. It is also the freedom and liberty that they defended.
During the wars of the 20th Century, millions of common folk soldiers from totalitarian countries fought bravely and died. And yet the deeds of these soldiers were on behalf of murderous, repressive, dictatorial regimes.
In contrast, those whom we honor with our new Highland Park memorial shine so brilliantly in our collective memory not just for their courage and sacrifice but because their deeds are further illuminated by the bright liberty and freedom that they defended.
The men and women listed on our memorial fought and died for our Constitution, our history of judicial independence, our Bill of Rights, including the right of Habeas Corpus--that is, the right to demand of the government why any individual is being held. Habeas Corpus is our first civil right going back to 1215 and it is our greatest protection against the government arbitrarily holding someone.
The death of a brave Italian soldier during World War II reflects only on the bravery of such soldier. But the death of an American soldier reflects not just on the courage and sacrifice of such American but also on all of the beauty and humanity of American rights and political traditions that such soldier protected.
Our Highland Park residents listed on our new memorial protected our liberties from external threats. But it is up to all of us, it is up to all Americans, all U.S. citizens, to defend our liberties from internal threats. It is for all of us here today to protect our freedoms, our enshrined rights, so that our cherished fellow Americans serving today in our military never fight except for America's most precious, most glorious principles and liberties. For there is no guaranty that, if we do not maintain vigilance internally, if we do not always fight to preserve our liberties--well there is no guaranty that America will not lose them. There is no Divine rule that says America will never lose them. Other countries have.
Earlier this year, the Chicago Bar Association held a series of programs regarding the 1946 Neuremberg Trials of Nazi leaders. One comment stunned me. When Hitler came to power, one out of every six lawyers in Germany was Jewish. For me, as a lawyer, it is horribly shocking to realize that the majority of the professional German bar--individuals trained to respect laws and the rule of law--quietly permitted one out of every six of their fellow lawyers to be exiled, imprisoned, killed. In just a few years, the German courts yielded to the Nazi thugs, offering no resistance as Jews, political opponents, artists, homosexuals disappeared. Hitler got rid of habeas corpus. No hearings. No inquiries. No independent judicial review of actions by the government. Nazi Germany shows how a civilized country can lose its values, and eventually itself.
America has also strayed in the past from its core legal principles. Let me tell you the story of the name partner of my law firm in Chicago.
In 1929, a young American, Tom Masuda, graduated from law school. During the Depression, he slowly built a small practice in Seattle, representing members of his minority community and, eventually, a number of Japanese corporations importing into the United States.
As so often happens, when a society is attacked as America was on December 7, 1941, it becomes fearful and the majority can look suspiciously and fearfully at the minority.
Two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tom was arrested. Because habeas corpus had not been suspended, the government was forced to bring formal charges against Tom in a court of law. He was charged with treason. There was no evidence, however, of any treasonous conduct. The only facts that the government had against Tom was that he was a lawyer active in the community and that he had been representing Japanese corporations on commercial transactions prior to World War II. But from the government's perspective, Tom's main crime was that, although a U.S. citizen born in the United States, Tom was of Japanese descent. One of Tom's law school classmates tried to deliver to the court funds in order to get Tom out on bail. This classmate was arrested.
After a full trial in which one of Tom's classmates was the prosecutor, Tom was acquitted, only to be released from the court house and sent directly to the State Fair Grounds where his wife, Kay, awaited him. Tom and Kay were part of the 125,000 American citizens of Japanese descent who were forced into crude camps in the western states, where they lived behind barbed wire for two-to-four years, some of them in converted horse sheds.
Tom was eventually allowed to leave the camp ---- but only on the basis that he move his home, his wife and his law practice to the Midwest. Tom and Kay moved to Chicago and Tom restarted from scratch his law practice, which grew into the law firm where I now work, Masuda, Funai, Eifert & Mitchell. Thomas Masuda and his wife, Kay, were the most gracious, generous, decent Americans that one could imagine, living full lives into their late 80's and early 90's, active in civic and charitable organizations and giving away the bulk of their estate--more than a million dollars--to charities.
As Tom's experience demonstrates, our country has strayed in the past and it is straying again today. Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that President Bush signed last month, Tom could have been declared an unlawful enemy combatant. He could have been charged as a person who materially supports hostilities because he had given charity to a Japanese-American service community charity or because he had opposed the early efforts of the federal government to lock up all Americans of Japanese descent.
Under the Military Commissions Act, my wife, a British subject and permanent resident of the United States, could be declared an alien, unlawful enemy combatant because she has opposed the war in Iraq or contributed money to the Quakers who have been monitored by the federal government for their work for peace. Grabbed by the authorities, my wife could be held and the government would not be required to present her before a court of law. There would be no review of the reasons for her detention, or the location of her detention or the evidence supporting her detention.
And under the Military Commissions Act, the President or his designee has sole authority to decide what is cruel, degrading, inhuman treatment to be used against an alien unlawful enemy combatant. The President or his designee can unilaterally reinterpret Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
Some of you may think that I am exaggerating. But it is important to realize some of the disturbing developments in our country over the past 5 years--developments so contrary to our core American beliefs.
- An honored West Point graduate, a captain and chaplain in the Army--a U.S. citizen---was thrown into solitary confinement for more than 60 days, without access to counsel, and charged with aiding the enemy because he complained about the treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo. Eventually, under public pressure, the Army was forced to grant him an honorable discharge.
- A U.S. citizen was arrested in Illinois and held without a court hearing for two years, charged with being an enemy combatant.
- Our government has indirectly acknowledged kidnapping and secretly detaining individuals, offering them for torture in other countries.
- In South Dakota, political extremists, angry with judicial decisions upholding fundamental rights, proposed a state constitutional amendment (known as "JAIL for Judges") that would have allowed litigants to sue judges on allegations that they deliberately disregarded material facts.
- After four years of incarceration, more than 400 detainees at Guantanamo have still not had a hearing to determine why they are being held.
- Ten years ago, in the Balkan conflict, our government complained loudly and appropriately regarding the abuse and torture of one of our downed pilots. Amnesty International stood with us. Today, our President and our outgoing Congressional leaders have openly discussed what limited forms of torture are permitted. Today, Amnesty International condemns us.
Many of our political leaders proudly profess their Christian faith and declare their belief in Jesus Christ, himself a victim of torture. And yet these same political leaders appear to have no scruples in abandoning our country's 200-year-old tradition, started during our Revolutionary War, of not torturing the enemy. Fully aware of the Bible's lengthy description of the horrible abuse of Jesus Christ, they have no problem radically reinterpreting the Geneva Convention so as to permit horrific abuse.
And so, here we are on this cold, gray November day, gathered around these symbolic graves, just a bunch of citizens, just regular people with children and parents and friends, with jobs and mortgages. We are just common Americans. But we have the formidable task to preserve our liberties from political extremists, protect our rights in spite of our fears, honor our judicial and constitutional traditions in spite of harassment and sneers, and defend our freedoms from internal threats.
This responsibility has been bestowed on us by the wise founders of our wonderful country; this calling has been placed on us by our forefathers and mothers; this duty is demanded from us by each of our Highland Park residents whom we remembered this morning; this sacred obligation is owed by us to all of our troops and their families serving our country today. And because of those Americans who have gone before us, and those Americans serving today in our military, and because of our love for our children and future Americans, we are not allowed to fail in our duty. Because of our love of our country, we cannot fail in our responsibility.
(The foregoing represents Tom's personal views and should not be attributed to his law firm.)