Author: Nat Hentoff

In the rising resistance against John Ashcroft’s USA Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders revising sections of the Bill of Rights, the attorney general has been particularly irritated by the attention the media are paying to the many librarians around the country who are expunging the records of borrowed books as soon as they are returned—in …

When the Supreme Court, 5 to 4, declared the McCain­Feingold campaign finance reform legislation constitutional on December 10, there were hosannas from Common Cause, New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, and other good­government enclaves. The Washington Post called it “one of [the Supreme Court’s] most important decisions in a generation.” The New York Times’ …

Among the continuing Ashcroft-Bush serial violations of the Bill of Rights, one has increasingly aroused editorial writers, constitutional scholars, and other citizens across the political spectrum. Under the elastic designation “enemy combatants,” the administration is holding two American citizens—with more to come—in military brigs and without charges, access to a lawyer, or the right to …

On February 7, there appeared on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity an eighty-six-page draft of the Justice Department’s proposed sequel to the USA PATRIOT Act. It so radically subverts the constitutional rights of Americans—far more than even the original USA PATRIOT Act—and so appalled a member of John Ashcroft’s staff that …

Throughout our history, the Bill of Rights has been often held in contempt by our government—witness the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts; Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the mass jailing of opponents of his policies during the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson’s near-extinction of the First Amendment during the First World War; the “Red …