Current law holds that while the content of electronic communications such as phone calls and emails is generally protected (where US Constitutional and other protections apply), the addressing of the messages are not. The court generally has held that the average citizen has no expectation of privacy regarding the numbers called, but does regarding what is said. Likewise, the address and return address on a postal envelope along with the postmark information is not protected, but the contents is. Thus tapping a line—listening in or recording phone calls­­—qualifies as search and seizure and requires a warrant. Recording the numbers that are connected does not.

In the purely telephonic days, the devices that were used in this area were "pen registers" and "trap and trace devices". Pen registers recorded the numbers that a phone dialed. Trap and trace devices could determine and record the numbers from which incoming calls originated. These concepts have been adapted to digital messaging and networking. Thus, capturing and recording the addresses that computer traffic flows through is generally held not to require a warrant, but examining and recording the content of the messages does.

This brings us to the illustration of the post card that accompanies this article. Most Internet traffic isn't encrypted, and the address and data portion of a network packet are the same sort of things. In many ways, it is as if mail was accomplished with postcards rather than envelops. Imagine if you will, that the law applied to the information on a postcard the way it does to the Internet or phone call. Without a warrant, it is OK to capture and record the address and return address and the postmark information, but not the text.

Further, let us apply our assumptions above. If the sender and recipient are foreign nationals, operating outside the US, then it is OK for the intelligence services to read the whole postcard, but if either the sender or recipient is a "United States-person", then a warrant or other authorization is required. One can envision a peculiar device that covers the left half of the card or the handwriting on the left, exposing the printed return address, scans the address and postmark and determines the identity and location of the sender and recipient, compares that with suitable records and makes the decision as to whether the hidden portion can lawfully be photographed and recorded.

Mr. Kringle is a native of the North Pole, territory claimed by the Russians. Records show that the postcard arrived on a plane from Canada, but the postmark shows that before that it was mailed within the US. Young Mr. Dough is a US-person, possibly a US citizen. Before such phrases as "keeping a little list" and "fellow travelers" can be used as evidence that Mr. Kringle is a "Red", Mr Dough's rights must be accounted for.

My fanciful steam punk postcard scanner is actually not all that fanciful. It is rather analogous to the sort of software you would need to use in order to capture email. Email messages are just streams of bytes organized into packets and messages according to a whole hierarchy of standards and protocols, and the way that the addresses are encoded is not particularly different from the way that the message content is. In the outer couple of protocol layers,IP addresses are encoded in binary, but the to and from fields of an email message are encoded in exactly the same sort of human readable text as the body of the message. The most simple minded search programs that you could use to search an email stream could readily scan unprotected addresses and protected contents with equal ease.

To implement the intent of our laws, that foreign/foreign messages can be scanned, searched and recorded by our intelligence services, without a warrant or the involvement of the courts, but insure that US/US email requires an ordinary warrant and US/foreign-agent email can be handled in accordance with the FISA law, a moderately intelligent and carefully crafted program needs to be used.

Basically such a device would consist of a "pen register" to determine who the message addressed to and a "trap and trace device" to determine where it came from. An analyst or analytical engine of some sort then determines if at least one "US person" is involved, and if any foreign agents are involved. If both are "United States Persons", then a list of applicable warrants determines if the contents can be saved or analyzed. If no US person is involved, then the message can be freely analyzed. If a mixture, then a check for the FISA process must be made.

If such a system for scanning the Internet trunk feeds that we have access to is going to be built, then it must be very carefully controlled. The software wants to be carefully designed and implemented, and the people operating and maintaining it must be carefully vetted. The policies and procedures for authorizing and monitoring its use must be carefully written and and enforced with appropriate oversight.

Personally, if I were with the federal government, my approach would be to split the trunk and send the duplicate feed into a highly secured room, control who had access to that room, staff it only with people who had serious background checks, make sure there was a field manual and oversight. Given their charter, the combination of technology and surveillance would suggest that the NSA be the agency chartered to hand this. I'm thinking it would look a whole lot like the whistle-blower described. The question is can the feds be trusted? Given my dedication to civil liberties and my view on the lawless behavior of the current administration, I'd have to say, no, not in the current instant. But that doesn't mean that no US Attorney General and no National Security Adviser can be trusted. It just means that we know that they can't all be. We have illustrative examples.

Now a bunch of Senators, Representatives and the odd Presidential candidate probably have more faith in the notion that the federal government can be structured and run in a way that is trustworthy. In the end, most of us trust ourselves and some fraction of folks like us. So, with that in mind, how does the recently passed FISA amendment stand up?

What is the new FISA?

While working on this posting I've read Title I of the recently passed FISA amendment bill a couple of times and tried to chart out the differences. While doing so, I came across someone who has done the same thing and published his completed flow chart of the original and amended FISA, skipping the short-live Protect America Act. Let's have a look at his analysis along with the actual text. The original article can be found on Wes Walls' blog Ketchup and Caviar. Here are the two flowcharts:

In his analysis, Wes says:

"The focus of change is the bolded red line marked “U.S. or non-U.S. Persons Located Inside or Outside the U.S.” Currently a warrant is required in this case. Notice the changes involving the bolded blue lines and text in the [second] chart. What New FISA does is create a special case involving our bold red line in the first chart. It provides a way for the executive branch to engage in warrantless (but “certified”) wiretapping of wire and cable (including email and phone) of any Foreign-to-U.S. communications collected inside the U.S. You’ll see the new set of criteria for certification in this special case. It does add new protections for U.S. Persons (citizens or greencard holders) by requiring the typical FISA warrant in all cases in which they are targeted."

I would have worded the change differently. What I would note is that the upper middle section of the flowchart changes from being based on location (the one rounded corner box and the three red lines) to a simpler pair of boxes based on whether any US person is involved. As a result, there is now a relatively simple three way decision regarding foreign surveillance. (Note that there is a fourth case, the "normal" one: If no foreign agents are involved, surveillance requires an ordinary warrant.)

1. If any US person is involved or the communications is domestic, a FISA warrant is needed
2. If no US person is involved, the communications is email or over cables, a special "Certification of Mass Acquisition" is available.
3. Otherwise, no warrant is needed when no US person is involved.

Paths 1 and 3 represent the simple cases. One no US persons are involved and the communications is foreign, the foreign intelligence services are unencumbered by US law (#1). Generally, if the foreign intelligence services want to spy on Americans or in America, then a FISA warrant is needed (#3). One exception for this is allowed. Spying on electronic communications of non-US persons outside the US by means of surveillance inside the US can be done under the new "Mass Acquisition" process. Note that this is specifically the case where communications that is fair game to our spies is embedded in a system that is known to contain protected US communications that is not targeted. (This is pretty much my case where the combination of a pen register, trap and trace device and analytical engine can be used to separate the two.)

And that brings us to the blue box in the bottom right. Here's what Wes has there:

1. Is the target reasonably believed to be located outside the United States?
2. Is the purpose of the targeting to acquire foreign intelligence information?
3. In the particular case, will "minimization procedures" adequately balance the privacy of US citizens against foreign intelligence needs?
4. Will there be a good-faith effort to avoid domestic targets and domestic communications? Will other limitations be observed?

I've removed the struck out text and the pointer to part II of David Kris's "A Guide to the New FISA Bill". I will address these shortly.

Questions #1 and #2 basically reiterate the decisions that got us through the flow chart to Mass Acquisition. The focus in the new act has turned away from requiring a "foreign power or agent thereof" to non-US persons outside the US (question #1). This is actually a good thing for the civil liberties of US persons, since as previously defined, a foreign agent could be a US person working for a foreign power. The question now is just "US person or non-US person". Without the struck out text, question #2 is basically a restatement of part of the logic that got us to this section. It becomes "Is the purpose of targeting [foreign communications between non-US persons believed to be outside the US by capturing traffic within the US] to target foreign intelligence information?"

With Question #3 we get to the heart of the issue, the "minimization procedures". These are spelled out in the bill in section 702 e, as follows (via OpenCongress):

(e) Minimization Procedures-

1. REQUIREMENT TO ADOPT- The Attorney General, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall adopt minimization procedures that meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 101(h) or 301(4), as appropriate, for acquisitions authorized under subsection (a).
2. JUDICIAL REVIEW- The minimization procedures adopted in accordance with paragraph (1) shall be subject to judicial review pursuant to subsection (i).

Section "301(4)", mentioned in #1 refers to physical surveillance, so the relevant section is 101(h), as follows (via Thomas):

(h) “Minimization procedures”, with respect to electronic surveillance, means—

1. specific procedures, which shall be adopted by the Attorney General, that are reasonably designed in light of the purpose and technique of the particular surveillance, to minimize the acquisition and retention, and prohibit the dissemination, of nonpublicly available information concerning unconsenting United States persons consistent with the need of the United States to obtain, produce, and disseminate foreign intelligence information;
2. procedures that require that nonpublicly available information, which is not foreign intelligence information, as defined in subsection (e)(1) of this section, shall not be disseminated in a manner that identifies any United States person, without such person’s consent, unless such person’s identity is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance;
3. notwithstanding paragraphs (1) and (2), procedures that allow for the retention and dissemination of information that is evidence of a crime which has been, is being, or is about to be committed and that is to be retained or disseminated for law enforcement purposes; and
4. notwithstanding paragraphs (1), (2), and (3), with respect to any electronic surveillance approved pursuant to section 1802 (a) of this title, procedures that require that no contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party shall be disclosed, disseminated, or used for any purpose or retained for longer than 72 hours unless a court order under section 1805 of this title is obtained or unless the Attorney General determines that the information indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person.

In essence, this is the requirements document for the pen register, trap and trace device and analytical engine device. Where as question #3 is "will the procedures be adequate?", question #4 is "will a good-faith effort be made to see that they are applied?" Two changes in the law would seem to attempt to speak to this question.

First, throughout the document, things that used to be the purview of the Attorney General or "the Attorney General or the National Security Advisor" are now "the Attorney General and the National Security Advisor" or at least "the Attorney General with the advice of the National Security Advisor". This doesn't guarantee the good intentions or competence of the two men, but it at least requires the collusion of two Senate approved officials, and one can see why the Senators might want that.

Second, the bill explicitly states in a number of places that the actions taken "shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States." This may seem frivolous. After all, all US laws must be consistent with the Constitution, and no federal action may legitimately violate Constitutionally protected rights. However, the inclusion of this specific proviso in the FISA law means that violations of the 4th amendment in carrying out these procedures is not only a violation of Constitutionally protected rights, with all that entails, but a federal crime under this statute as well. This provides an additional means of prosecution.

It remains to be seen whether these changes will have the beneficial effects that the Senators and others who support it hope, but I begin to see why they might think that this is an important improvement to the FISA laws. It

• brings all foreign surveillance under this law
• aligns the law with the jurisdiction and protections of the Constitution
• requires explicit procedures be defined for winnowing protected US communications from unprotected foreign communications
• makes the AG and NSA jointly responsible
• requires review
• makes explicit the criminal nature of stepping outside this law or the Constitution
• increases senate oversight
• makes explicit the grounds for criminal proceedings

While it may be argued that this law can be abused, that the government can use it as cover for domestic surveillance, the law explicitly addresses that. The law makes it a crime to target any of the following (from section 702(b)):

(b) Limitations- An acquisition authorized under subsection (a)--

1. may not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States;
2. may not intentionally target a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States if the purpose of such acquisition is to target a particular, known person reasonably believed to be in the United States;
3. may not intentionally target a United States person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States;
4. may not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States; and
5. shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Making it a crime doesn't stop it, but it does give us a handle for dealing with it.

In the end, I am left wondering how you balance the Constitutional protections of US persons and anyone in the US and allow the foreign intelligence services to spy on foreigners overseas given the mingling of foreign and domestic traffic and the fact that electronic communications is more like postcards than letters in envelopes other than by a law something like this one.

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Just over 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln warned us that "a house divided against itself cannot stand". While the image of national disunion, prophetic as it was, was what captured the national imagination, his actual message was not that the house would fall, not that the Union would crumble, but that

It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it... or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States...

His speech was a call to action, a warning that the Union was on a path that would lead to that which the North felt was inconceivable, the full legalization of slavery. It was a warning of the course the Republic was on, unless direct and strong action was taken to avert it. Sadly his speech was not strong enough to rally him the support needed to attain the Senate, let alone achieve his goal. Rather, it wasn't until the house actually began to fall, that states seceded, that a war was fought, that he achieved his goal and then paid its price.

I can easily imagine the horror he felt as his nation trod relentlessly towards slavery or disunion. I can imagine it because our house, our houses today are divided. The nation is divided, the Republican and Democratic parties are each divided, the proponents of civil liberties are divided. Polarization is rampant, and it endangers what we cherish.

A bit over 250 years ago Franklin wrote the following

As to the other two acts. The Massachusetts must suffer all the hazards and mischiefs of war, rather than admit the alteration of their charters and laws by parliament. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety".

The last quote, which he published in slightly altered form a few years later, is reminiscent of his maxim of 270 years ago to "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

All of this is advice that is extremely timely. All of it came to mind as I read Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olbermann, two staunch and outspoken defenders of our civil liberties and tradition of the rule of law not men, bickering with each other, sparked by Senator Obama's abandonment of his pledge to fight against retroactive immunity and the expansion of presidential power, presumably to increase his chances of being elected. All this while we as a nation take step after inexorable step away from habeas corpus, away from posse comitatus, away from the separation of powers, away from the rule of law towards the rule of men, the ever strengthening unenumerated inherent power of the man who is the decider in unitary executive.

The time has come to put aside the bickering between Obama Democrats and PUMA "Clintonians" and put a stop to the Republican advancement of the authoritarian destruction of our civil liberties. The time has come for civil libertarians such as Greenwald and Olbermann to put aside the bickering between them. The time has come for Obama to refuse to sell liberty to purchase power. The time has come for virtue over greed. The time has come to realize that it is not immigrants, legal or illegal who are stealing our jobs, but corporations and wealthy CEOs that are shipping those jobs overseas. The time has come to realize that Islamic radicals cannot steal our freedom, only we can sell it out of fear and greed.

The time has come for Republicans to stop sacrificing every conservative principle, every liberty in the name of party loyalty. Authoritarian rule by a unified executive that can at a whim nationalize the National Guard, and employ the Armed Forces in the US in "other circumstances", augmenting that with mercenaries who operate outside both American law and that of the nation they are "helping", and law breaking public carriers immunized at the word of the unified executive--these are not conservative values. Crippling national debt is not fiscal conservatism whether it is brought on by a spendthrift congress or a Commander in Chief who refuses to budget or collect taxes for America's longest war.

The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed that the Constitution valued habeas corpus even before it affirmed the Bill of Rights. And out of party loyalty, and fear of stateless terrorists, Republicans and Conservatives pilloried them for it. What conservative principle is served by fear mongering, of surrendering our most fundamental rights? None! The only reason that Liberals and Conservatives are fighting over this issue is because of what side the other is on.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. PUMA, Greenwald, Olbermann, Get A Grip! Sell not Liberty to purchase power. Obama, stand firm! Do not capitulate on principles for fear of being soft on terrorism. It is not "Strong on Terrorism" to give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety! It certainly isn't soft on terrorism to hold law breakers accountable--even if they were asked to break the law by the president.

We have allowed polarization to divide our country and our parties. We have allowed fear to cause us to sell out our principles and our liberties. Great Republics do not fall to small bands of fanatics. They fall when fear and divisiveness cause the people to surrender their rights and freedoms to the Leader, the Dictator, the Emperor. They fall when they allow their armies, their mercenaries, their spies, their police to be turned on them. They fall when they allow the government to keep a "little list" of people who cannot move freely, when they allow free speech to be confined to zones, when the leader's agents are immune from the law. They fall when the wealthy can buy the law.

Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Lincoln, Eisenhower all have warned us repeatedly against fear, greed, manipulation, the combination of money and military power. People! Stop! Think! Stop hating the enemy. Stop fearing the bogeyman. Dear me. Obama and Clinton differ in the details. Greenwald and Olbermann are on the same side of all the issues. They're calling each other names over who should be blamed for what. It doesn't matter who is blamed! What matters is what we do! Anthony Kennedy is a Conservative for great Ghu's sake.

When did it become a great Conservative value to fear monger!? Scalia says that Americans will die if we follow habeas corpus? The McCain campaign thinks it would be good for Republican political aspirations if after 8 years of the Republican Bush administration a terrorist attack was successful!? Republicans are rooting for Al Qaeda? Huh? The failure of the Republicans to keep us safe means we need more years of them? What?

Stop! Take a breath. Let's take a quick survey: Small government, low taxes, balanced budgets, states rights, free market economics, original intent, strict constructionism. Aren't those conservative values? Where did they go? The Republicans are so afraid of dissent among the ranks that they are willing to sell conservative principles for party unity and loyalty and follow a Republican president wherever he will lead.

The Democrats have so sanctified and so demonized their own leaders that they are willing to follow the Republicans into the same unprincipled "rule by men, not laws" future. The Dems, and the advocates of civil liberties are so focused on casting blame that they will attack their own allies.

Fear and division.

A House divided against itself cannot stand.
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

Please, get a grip.

Thank you. I'll be quiet now. We return you to the civil war, already in progress.

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Two news stories recently caught my eye, not only for what each one told us about the state of the Republic, but even more so, what comparing them tells us about the sorry state of journalism today. In the first story, Chris Wallace of Fox News managed to be so obsequious that it made even George W. Bush uncomfortable to accept the gesture.

Wallace: Protecting the rights...

WALLACE: I want to follow up on that. Whether it is interrogation of terror prisoners or the intercepting of surveillance among al Qaeda members, are you ever puzzled by all of the concern in this country about protecting of rights of people who want to kill us?

BUSH: That is an interesting way to put it. I wouldn't necessarily define some of the critics of my policy that way. I would say that they want to be very careful that we don't overstep our bounds from protecting the civil liberties of Americans.

In the same interview, Bush grossly misrepresented Senator Obama's foreign policy:

WALLACE: Do you think there's a rush to judgment about Barack Obama? Do you think voters know enough about him?

BUSH: I certainly don't know what he believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad, which -- I think I commented that in a press conference when I was asked about it.

WALLACE: I hope not. But so you don't -- you don't think that we know enough about him or what he stands for?

Bush's summary of what Obama supposedly said is patently false. The Senator actually said of Pakistan exactly what the President himself said, that if there were actionable intelligence that Osama bin Ladin were in a known location in Pakistan he would go after him, preferably with Pakistan's support, but even over their objection. As to "embracing" the Iranian president, what he actually said that started all the brouhaha was that he would be willing to meet with the leader of Iran (and 4 other countries hostile to the US) "And the reason is this: that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous." (Transcript available at CNN.)

Wallace did not challenge the President on this misrepresentation, but rather encouraged him. The interview was a segment on the Feb 10, 2008, edition of "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" is available in pieces on YouTube, and a partial transcript is available on FoxNews.com.

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Senator Dodd,

Thank you, Senator. Thank you for doing what so few have these last few years: standing up for the Rule of Law. The Rule of Law doesn't have a big office on K Street, nor does it result  in much juicy gossip. And though, for a while, it seemed to have become a partisan issue, with the Republicans working against it out of loyalty to an Imperial President and Democrats speaking up for it to show their opposition to him, we see now that it has few partisans, that few will man the barricades for it.

And yet there you stand, not in Iowa or New Hampshire, but on the floor of the Senate, speaking for the Rule of Law, the principle that if you violate the law, commit crimes, you must face justice in a court of law. There you stand, for the principle that the law of the land and not the whims and dictates of the Commander in Chief, the Sole Supervisor of the Unitary Executive, the man with "Inherent Executive Authority" that goes back to the Divine Right of Kings, is what rules us. There you stand.

And with you stand the ghosts of all our forefathers who gave their lives for the precious documents that enshrine that principle. How has it come to this that so few of our supposed leaders, our representatives, our senior statesmen stand by you? How is it that Senator Reid can give lip service to the principle, but bring to the floor the version of the bill that casts it aside, yet again? How can he not honor your "hold" and yet honor Senator Graham's that protects the power to torture from the application of the Army's Field Manual?

We hear much about supporting our troops. How does it support them to throw aside the practices of the Field Manual which prescribes principles of international law that we expect the world to apply to them. How does it support our troops to set aside the Uniform Code of Military Justice in favor of secretive ad hoc "Tribunals"? How does it serve them to tear down the principles that we insisted on at Nuremberg, that the rule of law and not of vengeance and power of the victor to do what he likes with the vanquished? How does it honor our dead to set aside the Constitution, Federal statutes and those of the several States, the laws and principles they fought and died for?

How have we come to the point where the ability to torture gets more respect from the leader of the Senate, the supposed head of the Opposition, than does the defense of the principle that those who break the law must face Justice in a Court of Law? It seems surreal. Routinely these days you hear people invoke Orwell's 1984, and less often Brave New World. Occasionally, Animal Farm is suggested as shedding light on where we are, or wry comments are made about the subtitle, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb".

But this week I feel like I'm caught in the President's Analyst. You may remember the film that satirized spy thrillers and conspiracy theories, by making the ultimate evil force that threatened our country that villain that everyone could hate: TPC -- The Phone Company. I feel like Dr. Sydney Schaefer, the titular President's Analyst who becomes convinced that everyone is spying on him, that all the spy agencies, and at their heart The Phone Company are out to get him. Back in 1967 we laughed at the film. It was an absurdist spoof. Today we seem on the verge of making it real, of making The Phone Company immune to prosecution, immune to civil suit, immune to inquiry as they secretively spy on us at the whim of a President whose lawyers tell him he is above the law or perhaps he IS the Law..

But, there you are. There you stand. Son of an FBI agent, Senator and Nuremberg prosecutor. Dark horse in a Presidential race where one freshman senator criticizes another for lack of experience. And while they thump their tubs, you stand and speak and act for the Rule of Law. Thank you Senator. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  As the descendant of a Scot who came to this country in chains, condemned to indentured servitude for standing against a self proclaimed "Lord Protector", only to win his freedom and settle in your home state, I thank you.

Thank you for remembering how hard fought our freedoms and privileges are in this country, thank you for standing for the the Rule of Law. It's not glamorous. It will not win you friends. It probably does you little good on the campaign trail. It will not endear you to K Street or to the leaders of your party. But thank you, and may Providence bless you.

Jim Burrows
Vox Libertas
A free voice

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This is now the fourth posting in my "In Concord" series, in which I have been trying to capture the thoughts and reflections that occupy me when I go to the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, a hallowed place that has served as my church for most of the 21^st Century. These postings have come in the order that their subjects arise in a typical visit, contemplating the enemy graves, the battle and fallen Minute Man memorialized there. We now follow the path to the Visitor's Center. After a short while it turns sharply to the right. The road used to fork here and the left fork continues on as a mowed path through the grass past the ruined foundation of Capt. David Brown's farm. I often stop here to contemplate the subject of this posting, but for a while there has been an even more concrete focus to be found further up the path.

The Hancock

In the Visitor's Center we find "The Hancock", one of the two remaining cannons from the cache that Gov. Gage had sent his men to confiscate. It is on loan from the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston (which commemorates the battle fought on Breed's Hill, but that is a story for another day). Like the other remaining cannon believed to be from the Concord cache, "The Adams", the Hancock is named after one of the two dangerous radical leaders that Gage was seeking. It sits on a recently made gun carriage not unlike the ones found and burned in downtown Concord resulting in the smoke that made the men of Concord fear their town was being burned. Together they represent the triggering causes of the "shot heard round the world", the outbreak of the War that would give birth to one great nation and begin the fall from power of another.

All that because Gage feared this weapon and its like in the hands of Hancock, Adams and the bands of insurgents and unlawful combatants who sided with them, to put it in the terms of my earlier postings. All this because rather than treat with men like Hancock and Adams, he and his superiors across the sea chose a preemptive military action, to interdict the radicals and their weapons of war.

But that formulation is all from the point of view of the British, their motives, their mistakes and the strategic failures that they led to. These are important in light of the analogy to our failure to apply the lessons of Concord to modern times, but now let us look at The Hancock and its fellows from the perspective of the Colonists. What does it tell us about their motives and beliefs, about the oft-cited Founding Fathers, their beliefs and assumptions?

To put it bluntly, the Battle of Concord was fought in part over the right of the people to bear arms, and not just pistols, and fowling pieces, but cannons—weapons of war. Gage moved precipitously and disastrously because he did not believe that the weapons of war belong in private hands, a view shared by many Americans today. But what Captain Davis and Private Hosmer died for on the North Bridge was their belief in the right and the need for the people to remain armed. Captain Davis was a gunsmith who drilled his Minute Company with bayonets and shot that he supplied them with, who died defending right of the men of a nearby town to possess cannons, powder, shot and the stores needed to field their militias against a government they found tyrannical.

When we write of Colonel Barrett, Captains Davis and Brown and the other colonial officers, it is easy to think of them as commissioned officers because of the titles of rank the bore, but there is an important distinction between Col. Barrett and Col. Francis Smith, the redcoat who lead his soldiers into Concord, between Capt. Davis and Capt. Walter Laurie who lead the troops on the other side of the bridge. Capt. Laurie, commander of the 43rd Regiment of Foot bore a King's Commission. He was a Captain in the King's army because the King said he was. His authority over his troops devolved to him because he and his superiors were appointed by the King or his appointees.

Capt. Davis was a captain because his fellow citizens in Acton said he was. Capt. Davis was elected. He served his town and his neighbors because he volunteered to and they elected him. His bravery, familiarity with firearms and willingness to supply and train his neighbors qualified him. Before the battle he and Major Buttrick, whose house is just beyond the Visitor's Center, and who drilled his men on the very field upon which the Colonials were gathered, and Capt. Brown, his next door neighbor, whose family watched the battle, and Col. Barrett whose field hid the cannons. They met to discuss and decide what to do because they were responsible not to a distant Governor or more distant King, but to the men who would die following their orders. The men, their neighbors, who elected them to make these decisions.

I stress the distinction between the commissioned officers of the King's army and the elected officers of the colonial militias and Minute companies because it is important in understanding who the cannons belonged to (ignoring for the moment the fact that they may very well have stolen them from the British). They belonged to the People. Even in 1775, before the Declaration of Independence, before the Constitution of the United States of America, these men gathered in Concord believed that political and even military power arose from the people.

The cannons were not Col. Barrett's, not Hancock's or Concord's. The cannon belong to the people. Barrett had them because he was the a senior officer in the people's militia, and was capable, as he proved, of protecting them until they were needed. He needed no authorization from the King, no commission as an officer. Rather he had the trust and respect of the men who elected and followed him, who were willing to die following his orders or those of Capt. Davis or Maj. Buttrick.

That this is so becomes quite clear a little more than a year later when John Hancock, the dangerous fanatic who fled Lexington with Sam Adams a few hours before the fight at the Bridge, and who would become the first Governor of the State of Massachusetts, seventh President of the United States in Congress Assembled, signed a document that declared that

... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, ...

and

... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, ...

And that is the importance of the cannon, since named after him, that lay concealed in the furrows of Col. Barrett's field, and the shot, powder and amassed provisions that were stored in his neighbors' houses. They enabled the people, the militia, to throw off British rule, to revolt against the government that they judged to be despotic.

These men did not believe in the inherent authority of the Commander in Chief and Supervisor of the Unitary Executive to ignore the law, whether he called himself the King and claimed Divine Right or President elected by a minority of the citizenry. They believed in retaining not only their rights, and the right and obligation to revolt. They also believed in the retaining the cannons, the weapons of war, to enable them to exercise those rights and duties to overthrow despots not merely foreign, but domestic.

It is all well and good to try to claim that

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

means something else, but as the men who laid down their lives in Concord on Patriot's Day, April 19, 1775, demonstrated, the men who hallowed this ground did so in defense of the right to bear cannon, and the right to revolt. And it was not merely the men of the Commonwealth who believed this. In response to Shay's Rebellion, a little more than a dozen years later the Virginian Thomas Jefferson wrote:

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. …God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. …And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

And here's the paradox of liberty. This country whose founding documents proclaim the right of revolution, the right of the populace to be armed enabling such a revolution, was the site of a singular event, as a man dressed in colonial garb at the foot of the Concord obelisk pointed out to me yesterday. Twenty two years after the Battle of Concord, John Adams, the cousin of the other dangerous radical who fled with Hancock, was inaugurated as President, under the following history making conditions.

1. The outgoing Head of State was still alive
2. The incoming Head of State was not related to the outgoing
3. The turnover was entirely peaceful
   
4. The incoming and outgoing Heads of State disagreed about major policies
5. The military was not involved

The country that believed in and was based on the right of revolt—armed revolt—was the birthplace of the entirely peaceful and orderly change of government.

And so, I disagree with those who seek to keep assault rifles and other weapons of war out of citizen's hands, to confine them only to duly appointed representatives of the government. Men died hallowing the ground where I pray in defense of just the opposite.

I met another man on the path of this sacred place, one who disagreed with some of what I have said in this series, who quoted me an old Shi'ite proverb that Iblis, the devil, was the first to reason by analogy, and that underscores the admonition that I usually end my blog postings with: Don't believe me. Read and research for yourself. Think and pray. Discuss with those who not only agree with you, but those who do not. Make your own decisions and act to preserve your country.

Be a Free Voice, the Voice of Liberty
Cry "Freedom!"
Vox Libertas

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This is the third in my series of postings capturing my thoughts and reflections from my frequent visits to the Old North Bridge in Concord, the site to which I most often go to pray and meditate these last half dozen years. The course of this series has followed my usual path through the site. In the first, I started where each visit begins and ends, at the graves of the two British soldiers. In the second, I proceeded to the obelisk and contemplated the historic parallels between their mission to Concord and our invasion of Iraq. In this installment we proceed across the bridge to the monument that was the reason for my visit  on September 12, 2001, the first time I came to the site explicitly to pray.

Minuteman at Dusk

Today, we visit the Concord Minuteman. My prayer on September 12 was one of thanksgiving as well as one of mourning and remembrance. It seemed clear to me that just as the Minutemen defended their homes and neighbors in Colonial America, a number of  the passengers of Flight 93 constituted the Militia in 2001. The details were sketchy, but it seemed clear from the reports of phone calls from the passengers that a group of men and women had gathered, determined that the hijackers had to be stopped from using their plane as a weapon, and charged the cockpit.

I came here to honor them, and their predecessors of the last 3 centuries, free citizens, volunteers who have stood to defend our Republic and Commonwealth. A few weeks later, in early October, I came here to pray before writing an essay entitled "9-11: America Victorious", in which I protested the portrayal of 9-11 as an American failure. This angered me because it gives too little credit to patriots like Beamer, Bingham, Burnett, and Glick who exemplify the Minuteman spirit.

In all the times that I have discussed this subject at the foot of the Minuteman statue, never has anyone disagreed with my contention that the Flight 93 heroes are the modern versions of Isaac Davis, and his fellows. Some have been surprised that they hadn't thought of it that way before, but none have taken issue.

Not so my other observation. You see, the Minuteman as portrayed in Daniel Chester French's statue is clearly an Unlawful Combatant, or more correctly, he is not in terms of the Geneva Conventions, a "Lawful Combatant". According to Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention, in order to qualify as a Prisoner of War (a Lawful Combatant), one must fulfill the following requirements:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

The colonial militias at the time of the Battle of Concord wore no uniforms, and displayed no fixed distinctive sign, though some did wear war paint and others cockades, but these were more designation of rank than of allegiance. It can also be argued that they did not conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. Certainly it was so argued at the time. One of the fallen British soldiers at the North Bridge was described by a fellow as appearing to have been scalped. The militia fired from cover, retreated into civilian houses and blended into the civilian populace. There is reason to believe that the cannons that the Governor was looking for in Concord were stolen from the British in Worcester. In the months leading up to the Battle of Concord, the militia had been used to intimidate the Governor's appointed judges, and so on.

Please, dear reader, understand that I do not say these things to disparage the Minutemen or the militias in general. You will be hard pressed to find someone more proud of the history or citizens of the Commonwealth or the Republic. I vehemently support the revolutionaries and insurgents who were our founding fathers. They were free men who fought for Liberty and for us, their descendants. They founded one of, if not the, greatest countries ever to grace the pages of history.

Rather, I bring these things up because I am critical of the Geneva Conventions and even more so of our nation's relationship to them. You see, in direct contradiction of the policies and opinions of the current administration, I hold that the Geneva Conventions do not cover enough people, rather than too many. They are not quaint, should not be abandoned or narrowed. The should be expanded. As they stand they would not cover the very men who fought to create our country. They would not cover the farmer who sets aside his plow to take up his rifle.

Ah, but you say, what of paragraph 6? (At least those of you facile with GCIII Article 4, Section A.) What of

6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

We were, however an occupied territory, a colony. Recall, if you will, that what had the Colonists up in arms (literally)—gathering the cannons, muskets and ammunition that Governor Gage sent his troops to find and confiscate were the "Intolerable Acts", including the Quartering Act, the reason that that the framers felt it was necessary to include in the Constitution the prohibition that

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Also, we had plenty of time. We had organized militias for more than a century. We did not "spontaneously take up arms". We chose the path of irregular militias rather than regular armies. No, paragraph 6 is not for us.

I'm no lawyer, especially not one versed in international law, so there may be something that I have overlooked, some way in which one might argue that the colonial militiamen might be covered by GCIII and GCIV, but at best, the matter is unclear. And so, if we were to be true to the history of our nation, we would be pressing the international community to  extend the coverage of the Geneva Conventions, and not as the current administration has done, worked to restrict that coverage.

This country was founded by insurgents, by free men who banded together for self protection who believed that the government was "of, by and for the people", that it takes its legitimacy from the will and the consent of the governed. We reject monarchy based on divine right and the subordination of the people to the state. The restrictions in the Geneva Conventions are based on the premise that only a state may raise an army, that fighters who are part of a recognized army fielded by a legitimate state should be protected. Individuals who fight for their own liberty, for the defense of their neighbors without state blessing are not as valued and protected. Unlawful Combatants. Insurgents and other non-state sponsored individuals are not protected. This should not be surprising as the Geneva Conventions are agreements between states.

It is perfectly understandable, but in terms of what happened on April 19, 1775, and the years that followed it, of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the United States and of the several Sates, it is not very American. It is very Bush, however. The current administration believes very much in rule by a strong individual, a Commander in Chief who is the sole decider in a Unified Executive. They have advanced political theories that dismiss individual liberty for the good of the State and the nation. They have sought to limit the number of people protected by the Geneva Conventions, and by our laws. For them, States are more important than individuals, rights are granted to citizens by the state rather than the other way around, and of course all power in the state is wielded by the sole supervisor of the unitary executive.

The lesson of Isaac Davis, the Acton Minuteman immortalized in the Concord Minuteman statue is that the farmer, the gunsmith, the man who was convinced that if he took up arms he would die, takes up arms because it is the right thing to do, because a patriot protects his neighbor's town from being burned by an occupying army seeking to disarm honest farmers. Here is not a soldier, not a lawful combatant, but a gunsmith, a farmer, a free man, chosen by the common consent of his fellows, to lead the first charge.

This is America.

But as ever, don't believe me. Read the history of the Battle of Concord and the Intolerable Acts. Read of the life of Isaac Davis, and the owl he believed foretold his death but which did not hold him back. Read the story of  Mark Bingham, the gay patriot from San Francisco and the words of his mother, Alice Hoglan regarding the ground that is hallowed by the bones of her son and the terrorists he died fighting. Decide for yourself what the memorials in Concord mean at their heart, what it means to honor the enemy dead, what it means to live in a Commonwealth and a Republic founded by insurgents, rebels and and citizen soldiers.

Be a free voice.
Be Liberty's voice.
Cry, "Freedom!"

Vox Libertas

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This is the second of my postings, capturing my thoughts and reflections at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, site of the "shot heard round the world". In the first, I introduced the series with a consideration of the import of the memorial to the two fallen British soldiers. In this installment, I will consider how they came to be there and how those events echo our own time.

I go often to pray and ponder at the North Bridge, walk down the processional aisle between the twin rows of pines, stop to pay my respects at the graves of the two British soldiers and to pray not only for them but for all soldiers who fight and die in foreign lands, for our soldiers who are overseas and for our Republic. My next stop, is the obelisk, a few feet behind me.

North Bridge Obelisk

I came to this spot, between the two monuments, one month short of the 208th anniversary of the Battle of Concord, on March 19, 2003 to contemplate what brought these two British soldiers to this spot.

They were sent, you see, on a mission to seek out and confiscate or destroy Weapons of War in the hands of dangerous fanatics who were a threat to their homeland thousands of miles away, and to capture and arrest two of the most dangerous of the fanatics' leaders. They never found the weapons. They never captured the leaders. But the locals, fearing that their town was being burned down by the invading army, who by the way, were actually trying to save the town, took up arms, joined the militias in huge numbers and using tactics that violated the rules of war drove the invading army back to the capital city, where they remained besieged until they withdrew. The mission, the invasion, the occupation, emboldened the fanatics, allowed them to recruit huge numbers, and assisted by foreign fighters hostile to the invading army drove them from the area. In doing so, they set an example for fanatics, separatists and nationalists around the world and a globe-spanning empire declined and fell.

The next day, March 20, 2003, it was my fears and not my prayers that were answered. This time the Great Power was the United States and not Great Britain. The Weapons of War were chemical and biological weapons, and perhaps a nascent nuclear project rather than cannons and as we have subsequently learned, seem not to have existed—the cannons were only hidden. But the story was nonetheless familiar. 

Of course, the analogy is imperfect. Saddam was undoubtedly a despot and had little in common with Adams and Hancock, and we were legitimately a British colony, and so on, but still, there are important lessons in terms of the strategy, the cost of tactical errors, and the like. To someone steeped in the history of the Battle of Concord, the siege of Boston and the American Revolution, some of these lessons are glaring. The soldiers buried here were their nation's first casualties in a series of conflicts that saw their homeland lose its influence in the area and its possessions and prominence throughout the world.

I had originally planned to give a more detailed account of the Battle of Concord and its analogy to our invasion of Iraq, but in keeping with my oft repeated urging that you not believe me, but rather inform yourselves and make your own decisions, let me refer you to the Wikipedia's article on the battle. You will find that the article is tagged as having its accuracy and neutrality challenged. The reason is that a couple of people feel that it is biased in favor of the British, and speculate this is due to foreign editors. As a matter of fact, the main editors are locals, and their understanding is quite like mine. But perhaps more importantly for my purposes here, since I am drawing an analogy between the colonials and modern Iraqis, and the the British and the modern US, that bias if it does exist works against and not in favor of my points.

I'll wait here while you go read the article.

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This is the first in a series that I plan to post, capturing the thoughts and reflections that I have when I go to one of my favorite and most sacred places, the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. For most of this new millennium, the bridge and its environs has been my church and my retreat, the place I go to pray, to think, to find my balance. It has been such for a number of reasons. First, it was the site of pivotal events which shaped history for the centuries to come, and which resonate with the events that move us most profoundly today. Second, it is a place where men laid down their lives for their country. Finally, as a piece of nature, the arching bridge over the flowing river reminds me of the miracle of nature and creation.

Each of these articles should be short and focus on one theme, one line of thought of the several that I focus on when I go to the bridge. My time there, my meditations on nature, life, death and sacrifice, my ponderings of the history made there and its place in the larger fabric of American life and history have provided me with what I regard as important lessons and reminders, and so I'd like to share those with others.

The first spot, and the last that I always visit there will be the focus of this first reflection. I expect that it will be shorter and perhaps simpler than most of those that follow. But, as with my visits, I hope it will set the groundwork, the initial tone, of my postings, just as visiting the spot itself sets the context for my visits.

Grave of the British Soldiers

The spot is the graves of two British soldiers who were killed at the bridge on April 19, 1775. For those who have not vsited the site, let me set the scene. The bridge is not far from Monument Road, and you approach it down a broad path between rows of high arching pine trees, trees intentionally planted there to create something of a cathedral in the pines atmosphere. The path leads straight to the obelisk monument, and off to the left, by the inevitable New England stone wall, there is a small chained off area, with two Union Jacks and a large inscribed stone. Usually, there are flowers on the graves. If the pines create a cathedral effect, the graves are a small chapel to the side. They are small and unremarkable, at least physically.

But in another way they are most remarkable. All over the world you can find war memorials, grave sites, and markers to the fallen dead of past wars. But here, without much fanfare is one of the most unique. It is a memorial to the Enemy's Honored Dead. Think of that. Not to our nation's fallen heroes, not to the local boys who gave their lives, but to the fallen enemies, to those who were seen as invaders and a threat to the town, to two of the first casualties of the American Revolutionary War, even though they were on the other side.

This unique memorial says a lot to me about who we are as a people. Many of my ancestors are Celts, Irishmen and Scots, people who are renowned  for their abilities to keep a feud alive for years, and generations. And so it is the world over, where wars are often fought over slights and insults generations or centuries old. But here, in America, "the Great Melting Pot", historical enemies have learned to live side by side, to hang together lest we hang separately. The first permanent colonists in the Commonwealth, the Pilgrims and the Puritans, came here seeking not religious tolerance, but the freedom to, in the case of the Pilgrims, create a separate community run by their own strict principles or in the case of the Puritans, to purify the Anglican church, according to very similar principles. Names like "Cotton Mather" are not associated with tolerance.

A century and a half later, as the United States emerged, Americans had learned that Quakers, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Deists all had to set apart their differences, to live and work side by side with those with whom they disagreed upon the most fundamental truths and principles, that if freedom, democracy and the rule of law were rule in place of the King as joint head of Church and State then differences and old grudges must be set aside. Not surprisingly, once the Revolution and its echo, the War of 1812 were past, we tended to see Great Britain and Canada as perhaps rivals, but not real enemies.

And so, 130 years ago, the British graves were protected by pillars and chains donated by an English ex-pat, and we honor their deaths, and their role in the founding of our nation. We lay flowers on their graves, and mark it with their flag, and write words that praise their bravery. And that, is something not often seen now or through history. It is a small thing, but one of many that make me proud to live in my Commonwealth and my country.

And as I look at our present day conflicts, I start with a prayer that we can understand those on the other side and those caught up in the middle as we have come to understand those whom we fought 232 years ago. In part, these two soldiers died in a conflict that had been growing inevitably for years, and in part they died due to misunderstandings and confusions that arose in the heat of the moment. They died as a result of the folly of their superiors, immediate and ultimate, and helped to start a struggle that led to the fall of their Empire. I pray, each visit, that we can learn from them; that we can avoid similar follies; that we do not plunge our great Republic into a similar decline from greatness.

I visit their graves with both pride and humility. Only a great people can afford to honor their fallen enemies, and great nations can fall through hubris and folly.

In future installments, I will deal with such topics as the parallels between the Battle of Concord and the War in Iraq, the Minutemen and the Geneva Convention, and Concord's relationship to the Second Amendment, any one if which is likely to be a bit more controversial than this piece.

Until then, be a Free Voice.
Cry, Liberty.
Vox Libertas

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Sigh. It has been far too long since I wrote here, and my review of John Yoo's "The Powers of War and Peace" has sat incomplete too long. My apologies. It seems that life happens while you are busy making other plans. The Yoo review will, sadly, continue to be delayed. Reviewing and critiquing political and legal theory takes more concentrated research and thought time than I seem to be able to muster in a single lump of late. So, please forgive me if I fall back for a moment on a simpler task, and write about media fear-mongering and cultural ignorance.

I was reading this morning, a little piece over in Think Progressive regarding Fox News's fear mongering coverage of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), a new school opening in Brooklyn that will teach the Arabic language (in a special 2 our session after normal school hours) and Arab culture. When I saw the article and the Fox video, I knew nothing about the KGIA, but it seemed a little surprising to to me to hear the phrases "Muslim school",  “Islam 101?” , “Funding Fatwa?,” and “Coming soon to a classroom near you, Al Qaeda!" used with regards to a school named after Khalil Gibran, a Lebonese Christian, excommunicated from his church and exiled from his Ottoman Turk-controlled homeland for his attacks on the corruption of the nobility and the church, so I did a little research.

On the one side I found a blog by Daniel Meeter, paster of the Old First Reformed Church, who along with Rabbi Andy Bachman had accepted the invitation of the school's designated principal, Debbie Almontaser to serve on tKGIA's advisory council, in which he described her as an American Patriot. On the other, I found an article by Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun entitled "A Madrassa Grows In Brooklyn", which described Ms. Almontaser as an extremist. This article and a whole series of articles at pipelinenews.org are echoed in blogs all over the Web.

As I said, I know nothing of the school or Ms. Almontaser, but was suspicious of claims that someone who invited a pastor and a rabbi onto the advisory council of a school named after an iconoclastic Christian was pushing a fundamentalist Islamist agenda.  After a couple of hours Googling and reading, it seems pretty clear that Fox News, Pipes, Pipline and the others are either engaged in fear mongering or are its victims.

Take, for instance, the following description of the Ms. Almontaser from a hyscience.com article entitled "The Dangerous Islamist Leftism Of Dhabah (Debbie) Almontaser And The Proposed Khalil Gibran School In Brooklyn":

According to Dhabah Almontaser, the principal designee of the proposed Khalil Gibran School in Brooklyn, the 9/11 Attacks America's Fault, and "terror is the last resource of a desperate and oppressed people" (as in oppressed by America). Almontaser's views and objectives are so bizarre that the school will be a government funded madrassah...

and contrast it with this slightly longer quote from the interview:

Terror is the last resource of a desperate and oppressed people, but that does not mean that it is acceptable. People who do terrorist acts have lost the sense of right and wrong, each individual committing such acts should be punished with the maximum extent of the law. Only Allah is entitled to take lives.

Just a little bit of a difference. She sound less of a "Dangerous Islamist" when she disapproves of terrorism and killing. When asked, "How do you think terror can be combated?" her reply was

- At least not by bombing a country into pieces! We did not bomb the hometown of Timothy McVeigh to combat terror when he exploded the Oklahoma bomb in 1995. Great Britain does not bomb North Ireland to fight down the IRA, and Spain does not kill hundreds of civilians in their search for ETA terrorists. So which right do we have to kill Afghan women and children, old and young in the search for Al Qaeda?

- Terror is combated by finding the terrorist cells, break them down and bring the responsible to justice. I am sure that our intelligence can find them. With the technology of today they survey what ever they want and are infiltrated in all kinds of communities.

At the time she said this, a little more than a year after 9/11, it was a point of view that would have been shocking or hard to swallow for a great many, but today as an ever-growing majority of Americans turn against the President's "War on Terror" it seems more mainstream.

On the other hand, her view on the causes of the 9/11 bombing are still not mainstream, and I can see how some, perhaps even many, would find them shocking or a little threatening. Asked "Why do you think terrorists attacked the USA?", she replied,

- A year ago I could not answer such a question. To me it was just impossible to comprehend how someone could do such terrible, totally sick atrocities. Many said they were not surprised that terrorists attacked the US. That hurt me deeply. Today I believe that the terrorist attacks can have been triggered by the way the USA breaks its promises with countries across the world, especially in the Middle East and the fact that it has not been a fair mediator with its foreign policy. It is not true that the people in the Middle East and Southeast Asia hate our lifestyle, our freedom and our democracy. What disturbs them is that we in order to secure our own well being, deprive them of the possibility of achieving the same high living standard and freedom of choice that we have in the western world.

[This is the point where she made the oft-quoted statement about terror being the last resource.]

This sort of candid criticism of American policy is the kind of thing that gets liberals and progressives accused of "hating America", and is an accusation that is hard for many of us to hear, but that makes it all the more important for us to listen to it and to understand where it comes from, rather than react with fear or anger. Rather than focusing solely on the extent that she holds her country responsible and not her faith or language, seeing it in a conext that starts and ends with a staunch disapproval of terror ("such totally sick atrocities... should be punished with the maximum extent of the law.") and on religious and ethical grounds in the context of her religion, can help us understand world culture and how it affects us all.

This brings me back to the thing that fist caught my ear, the fact that the Fox commentators and the critics in The New York Sun and the blogosphere all talk about the Khalil Gibran school and don't bother to mention that it was named after an anti-traditionalist Lebanese Christian, most likely because they don't even know. They fear and hate, but do not understand.

And that is not all that surprising. Gibran became quite popular in the late 60's but was generally viewed as a smaltzy poet, a source of pop aphorisms thanks to the popularity of The Prophet in both abridged and unabridged versions. In fact, though, he was really something of a radical and iconclast. Two of his works that I enjoyed while growing up were Spirits Rebellious, and Broken Wings. The first story in Spirits Rebellious, "Madame Rose Hanie" and Broken Wings address the same theme, a beautiful young woman in love with one man but in an arranged marriage with another older richer one. In Rose's case, Gibran argues explicitly that in leaving her rich husband to live with the poor one she loved, Madame Hanie was being faithful. Had she stayed, her motives and actions would be hardly different from that of a whore. Broken Wings is told from the perspective of the young man, whose beloved Selma dies in childbirth having stayed with her older husband. It was my favorite of his stories, even before I met and married my own Selma. How could I not appreciate:

In every young man's life there is a "Selma" who appears to him suddenly while in the spring of life and transforms his solitude into happy moments and fills the silence of his nights with music.

The final story in Spirits Rebellious, "Khalil, the Heretic", is of a young peasant man who stands up to a corrupt sheik and church. It's not a subtle story, but it is the one that got him exiled from his country and excommunicated from his church and the passion of its attack on church and state in the name of Jesus and the people helps one to understand his other works. (By the way, the title is not quite so self-referential as one might think, as Gibran's name was actually Gibran Khalil Gibran--Khalil Gibran was his father's name. His American publisher didn't think people would understand the double name.)

I bring up who and what Gibran was because, Anglo-Germanic Celt though I may be, his poetry, his faith, his art and his rebellion were all a part of my childhood, and it is perhaps due to that as well as all the other diverse influences that make me believe in this country and its E Pluribus Unum philosophy. The fear mongers would have us believe that the only part that matters is the "one", that foreigners should cast off their old languages and culture and become one, but that misses the great strength that there is in the "out of many". The great miracle of this country's founders was that Puritans, Anglicans, Catholics, Quakers, and Deists could all agree that their religion need not be the established one, that we could have many, or even chose none. Louisiana could join the Union with a legal code that owed more to French law than British Common Law. French-speaking enclaves could exist in New Orleans and northern New England, three Republics with Spanish traditions and histories and Spanish-speaking citizens could join the Union. We can be different and be Americans, love America.

A prayer offered by the title character of "Khalil, the Heretic" seems particularly appropriate to Vox Libertas.

Hear us, Oh Liberty;
Bring mercy, Oh Daughter of Athens;
Rescue us, Oh Sister of Rome;
Advise us, Oh Companion of Moses;
Help us, Oh Beloved of Mohammed;
Teach us, Oh Bride of Jesus;
Strengthen our hearts so we may live,
Or harden our enemies so we may perish
And live in peace eternally.

But, as ever, don't believe me. Read the works of Gibran. Read Debbie Almontaser's own words and think about them. Compare them to what is said about her. Learn something of the history of the Middle East, study from the Anglo/French, Turkish, Jewish and Arabic perspectives. See if you can synthesize a holistic view of that history from the varied versions.

Be a free voice, the voice of liberty, cry "Freedom!" till it rings.
Vox Libertas

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