Joe Lieberman has a new proposal which would give the U.S. government the power to automatically revoke the citizenship of any American it accuses of having ties with terrorists. In Lieberman's own words, from a Monday interview on FOX:
There is an existing law, which hasn't been much used. It says that if an American citizen is shown to be fighting in a military force that is an enemy to the United States, then that person loses their citizenship and they no longer have the rights of citizenship. That's an old law that was adopted during a very different time of conflict.
I think it's time for us to look at whether we want to amend that law to apply it to American citizens who choose to become affiliated with foreign terrorists organizations, whether or not they should also be deprived automatically of their citizenship and therefore be deprived of rights that come with that citizenship when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act.
It isn't hard to figure out why it would be a bad idea to automatically deprive American citizens of their citizenship at the time of arrest. Indeed, any fourth grader could explain to you why Lieberman's idea is fundamentally un-American.
It would be one thing if Lieberman were proposing to strip the citizenship of American terrorists who have been convicted by a jury of their peers. But that's not what he says he's proposing. Lieberman wants to "automatically" revoke citizenship of suspected terrorists "when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act."
Obviously, the key word here is "automatically," because contrary to Lieberman's claim, current law on revoking citizenship does not need to be amended to cover terrorists. Lieberman is correct when he says that current law allows the government to strip citizenship from anyone who serves in the military of an enemy state. But that's not the only way to lose your citizenship. The law also says anyone who violates section 2385 of title 18 of the U.S. Code can have their citizenship revoked. Section 2385 bans joining "any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of" the U.S. government. Clearly, that language encompasses terrorist organizations. (Section 2385 also applies to lone wolves who engage the same activity.)
Lieberman's problem with current law isn't that it can't be applied to terrorists, it's that it places the burden of proof on the government to prove that citizenship should be revoked. If he merely wanted to revoke the citizenship of convicted terrorists, he would urge government to follow current law. Instead, he is proposing a new law because he believes the government should have the power to automatically revoke citizenship at the time of arrest without any sort of due process.
Lieberman's proposal stands in direct opposition to a cherished ideal of the American justice system: that you are innocent until proven guilty. It opposes every notion of justice enshrined in our Constitution. This stuff isn't hard to understand. We all learned it grade school. And while there's no question that Osama bin Laden would support the legal and political theory undergirding Lieberman's idea, this is not what our nation is all about. Lieberman's idea is rotten to the core: it's fundamentally and deeply un-American.
