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American Government and Organization

0. American Government and Organization. PS1301 Friday, 23 April. Announcements. Take Quiz on Chapter 4 Read “The Pendulum Continues to Swing: Civil Liberties Two Years after September 11” in American Politics After September 11. Policy Responses to 9/11. National Security

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American Government and Organization

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  1. 0 American Government and Organization PS1301 Friday, 23 April

  2. Announcements • Take Quiz on Chapter 4 • Read “The Pendulum Continues to Swing: Civil Liberties Two Years after September 11” in American Politics After September 11

  3. Policy Responses to 9/11 • National Security • Joint resolution on 14 Sept. ‘to use all necessary and appropriate force against nations…that he determines planned…the terrorist attacks” • Patriot Act (October 2001) • Department of Homeland Security • Economic • Airline relief bill (October 2001) • Military Response • Invasion of Afghanistan • War in Iraq

  4. Other policy options not adopted or abandoned: • TIPS – Terror Information and Prevention System (govt./private sector workers ‘spies’) • Terror Futures Market • Traders could buy and sell futures contracts based on their predictions about what would happen in the region. • Racial profiling at airports

  5. Patriot Act Summary • Enhances executive branch’s power to conduct surveillance, search for money laundering, share intelligence with criminal prosecutors and charge/detain suspected terrorists with crimes.

  6. Patriot Act Provisions • Relaxes restrictions on information sharing between U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officers about suspected terrorists. • Makes it illegal to knowingly harbor a terrorist • Authorizes "roving wiretaps," • Allows the federal government to detain non-U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism for up to seven days without specific charges. • Allows law enforcement officials greater subpoena power for e-mail records of terrorist suspects. • Triples the number of Border Patrol, Customs Service Inspectors and Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors • Expands measures against money laundering • Eliminates the statute of limitations for prosecuting the most egregious terrorist acts

  7. Patriot Act – Threat to Civil Liberties • Change in protections from unreasonable search and seizure • Detention of non-citizens, immigrants • Racial profiling

  8. Re-emergence of Patriot Act on the Agenda – end of August 2003 • A report on Tuesday's deadly attack at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that left a reported 20 people dead • Ashcroft defends patriot act – see video clip

  9. Video • Weighing the Patriot Act: Background • Weighing the Patriot Act: Discussion • The Newshour with Jim Lehrer [PBS] • August 19, 2003

  10. The Role of the Courts • Structure of the Federal Judiciary • Courts and Civil Rights • Post 9/11 court rulings

  11. The Structure of the Federal Judiciary • Only the Supreme Court is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. • nature of the judiciary beyond the Supreme Court deferred to Congress. • Judiciary Act of 1789 - created the federal judiciary.

  12. The Structure of the Federal Judiciary • The federal judiciary is organized as a three-layered pyramid. • Base: 94 district courts staffed by 632 justices. • Every state has at least one district court; the three largest states have four. • These trial courts deal with three types of cases: criminal, civil, and public law.

  13. The Structure of the Federal Judiciary • Above the district courts are thirteen courts of appeals, administered by 179 judges, who generally sit in three-judge panels. • Eleven separate geographic regions (circuits) cover the fifty states. • A twelfth circuit is assigned to the District of Columbia. • A thirteenth, called the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, has a nationwide jurisdiction and deals mostly with federal policies.

  14. The Structure of the Federal Judiciary • The Supreme Court is the court of final appeal. • Under its appellate jurisdiction, the Court may hear cases appealed from the lower courts or directly from the highest state courts when an important constitutional question is in dispute.

  15. The Structure of the Federal Judiciary • The Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction (where it acts as the trial court) pertains to all cases “affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party.” • In 200 years, the Court has heard only 160 cases under its original jurisdiction.

  16. Civil Liberties vs. National Security • Selected post 9/11 court rulings • Rights of Enemy Combatants • Al Odah v. United States (March 2003 • D.C. Circuit Court “aliens detained outside the sovereign territory of the U.S.’ do not enjoy constitutional protections • Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (july 2002) • U.S. citizen arrested in Afghanistan • Sought access to lawyer, 4th circuit, overturned previous ruling denying right

  17. Other post 9/11 decisions • Closed Hearings • North Jersey Media Group Inc. v. Ashcroft Oct. 2002) • Defer to AG [3rd district court] • Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft • 6th circuit court, rejected blanket closure, must decide on case by case basis

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