816 North Eloi
Morden, MA 07014
15 November 2003
The Honorable Edward Kennedy
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20500
Senator Kennedy:
As a citizen of Massachusetts and the United States, I urge you to support the keeping of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution.
I continually hear politicians assert their devotion to the United States. However, I also hear these same politicians supporting Attorney General Ashcroft and President George W. Bush in their call for military tribunals for terrorist suspects. Since these trials would be held without juries, appeals, or the right to counsel, such trials would put to flight the basic rights guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This ruling would also violate Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution that says that “judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, laws of the United States, [including] the citizens thereof, and foreign states.” This section of the Constitution applies since the tribunals are to try citizens and noncitizens—including permanent noncitizen American residents—suspected of terrorist acts. In short, Bush’s executive order nullifies the document which most represents what America is about.
This attack on the Constitution is particularly despicable in lieu of the President’s recent patriotic fervor displayed as a result of the attacks on New York and Washington. The people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crashed airliners died for the Constitution. They did not die so that America could turn its back on that Constitution. To allow for usurpation of American justice would be a further attack on those people and would make their deaths even more meaningless.
Therefore, in the hearings over this attack on the Constitution, I urge that you speak out against the imposition of military tribunals. Stand up for the Constitution which you have pledged to uphold.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely yours,
Gather Knopf