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We did not have a knee jerk response to the Oklahoma City bombing? What would you call this rights-contracting law then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiter

We did not have a knee jerk response to the Oklahoma City bombing? What would you call this rights-contracting law then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_Death_Penalty_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_De...

agwa 14y ago
Thank you. I was literally about to post the same thing.
rayiner 14y ago
AEDPA is designed to keep people from spamming the federal courts with frivolous habeas petitions, particularly in capital cases. It has 'anti-terrorism' in the name, but it's almost entirely about the 'effective death penalty' part.[1] Among other things it's heavily focused on forcing federal courts to give more deference to state court judgments and avoiding situations where prisoners invoke minor technical violations in order to argue that their detentions are "illegal." It doesn't limit habeas rights--it creates stricter procedures for invoking that right that are less susceptible to abuse. [1] The "terrorism" part seems to come from using the example of people like McVeigh to argue for procedures to keep people from defeating a death sentence by filing endless habeas petitions.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "It doesn't limit habeas rights--it creates stricter procedures for invoking that right" Much like free speech zones don't limit free speech rights, they just create stricter procedures for exercising those rights. AEDPA was not just about habeas corpus rights. It covers penalties for conspiracies that involve explosives and for hacking into government computers. It covers counterfeiting activities. It covers law enforcement training and assistance. It covers international terrorist funding and investigation. It is like an embryonic version of the PATRIOT act.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Not every attempt to address security and terrorism can be deemed "rights-contracting." The other stuff in AEDPA doesn't contract any rights, just addresses particular kinds of crimes. The only thing that arguably contracts rights are the habeas portion, and that's more appropriately seen as improving habeas procedures rather than contracting rights.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "Not every attempt to address security and terrorism can be deemed "rights-contracting."" Of course; only those that restrict our rights should be so labeled. That, unfortunately, is what the majority of attempts to address security concerns do. "The other stuff in AEDPA doesn't contract any rights, just addresses particular kinds of crimes." That is a tautology: take away the things that are bad, and you are left with something good. Ignore the sections that reduce, restrict, or eliminate our rights, and every knee-jerk reaction just addresses particular kinds of crimes (whether or not they do so in an effective way is another story). "The only thing that arguably contracts rights are the habeas portion, and that's more appropriately seen as improving habeas procedures rather than contracting rights." More appropriate according to you perhaps, and perhaps the right wing politicians who passed and signed the bill, but it is hard to say that we are "improving" civil rights by restricting them. Restricting habeas corpus is not an "improvement," it is a restriction on civil rights -- or alternatively, a contraction of our rights. The entire argument for restricting habeas corpus in this manner was this: people facing the death penalty might try to avoid being executed by exhaustively testing every technical detail of their case in court. That does not sound like a bad thing to me, it sounds like people are making use of their rights in a life or death situation. Far too many innocent people have been executed to claim that there are too many ways for death row inmates to stave off their executions. AEDPA was drafted by the kind of people who think The Ox-Bow Incident is a how-to manual on law enforcement. It is the mindset that sees a man like McVeigh challenging his execution and says, "How dare he! We are supposed to kill him, because he is GUILTY!" That is not how America is supposed to work. The criminal justice system in this country is meant to ensure that innocent people are not imprisoned or killed even if it means allowing guilty people to walk free and even if it means using tax dollars to pay for guilty people to challenge their conviction.
- agwa 14y ago
  Well, we're certainly going to disagree about whether the AEDPA is good law or not. I happen to think it abridges liberties, but that's beside the point. The point is that its passage was very much in response to the Oklahoma City Bombings, even if its legacy today has to do with habeas petitions. See this: "But within weeks of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Senate voted 91 to 8 to pass the Comprehensive Terrorism Protection Act of 1995, which cut back sharply on state death-row inmates’ access to federal court. This bill eventually morphed into the broader Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which President Clinton signed shortly after the first anniversary of the bombing. Standing on the south lawn of the White House, in the presence of family members of the victims of Oklahoma City and other recent terrorist incidents, the president declared that the new law “strikes a mighty blow” against terrorism." [1] And also [2], which notes that a draft of the AEDPA also contained additional surveillance powers, among other things. I'd definitely call the AEDPA a knee jerk reaction. [1] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/homegrown-hurt/ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/homegrown-hu... [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=H_RrLyV9rDUC&lpg=PA31&ots=OqO1HPrbuY&pg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=H_RrLyV9rDUC&lpg=PA31&#...
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Just because a bill is motivated by an event does not make it a "knee-jerk" reaction. There has to be some element of "poorly thought out." AEDPA is a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem it addresses.

agwa 14y ago

Thank you. I was literally about to post the same thing.

rayiner 14y ago

AEDPA is designed to keep people from spamming the federal courts with frivolous habeas petitions, particularly in capital cases. It has 'anti-terrorism' in the name, but it's almost entirely about the 'effective death penalty' part.[1] Among other things it's heavily focused on forcing federal courts to give more deference to state court judgments and avoiding situations where prisoners invoke minor technical violations in order to argue that their detentions are "illegal." It doesn't limit habeas rights--it creates stricter procedures for invoking that right that are less susceptible to abuse. [1] The "terrorism" part seems to come from using the example of people like McVeigh to argue for procedures to keep people from defeating a death sentence by filing endless habeas petitions.

betterunix 14y ago
"It doesn't limit habeas rights--it creates stricter procedures for invoking that right" Much like free speech zones don't limit free speech rights, they just create stricter procedures for exercising those rights. AEDPA was not just about habeas corpus rights. It covers penalties for conspiracies that involve explosives and for hacking into government computers. It covers counterfeiting activities. It covers law enforcement training and assistance. It covers international terrorist funding and investigation. It is like an embryonic version of the PATRIOT act.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Not every attempt to address security and terrorism can be deemed "rights-contracting." The other stuff in AEDPA doesn't contract any rights, just addresses particular kinds of crimes. The only thing that arguably contracts rights are the habeas portion, and that's more appropriately seen as improving habeas procedures rather than contracting rights.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    "Not every attempt to address security and terrorism can be deemed "rights-contracting."" Of course; only those that restrict our rights should be so labeled. That, unfortunately, is what the majority of attempts to address security concerns do. "The other stuff in AEDPA doesn't contract any rights, just addresses particular kinds of crimes." That is a tautology: take away the things that are bad, and you are left with something good. Ignore the sections that reduce, restrict, or eliminate our rights, and every knee-jerk reaction just addresses particular kinds of crimes (whether or not they do so in an effective way is another story). "The only thing that arguably contracts rights are the habeas portion, and that's more appropriately seen as improving habeas procedures rather than contracting rights." More appropriate according to you perhaps, and perhaps the right wing politicians who passed and signed the bill, but it is hard to say that we are "improving" civil rights by restricting them. Restricting habeas corpus is not an "improvement," it is a restriction on civil rights -- or alternatively, a contraction of our rights. The entire argument for restricting habeas corpus in this manner was this: people facing the death penalty might try to avoid being executed by exhaustively testing every technical detail of their case in court. That does not sound like a bad thing to me, it sounds like people are making use of their rights in a life or death situation. Far too many innocent people have been executed to claim that there are too many ways for death row inmates to stave off their executions. AEDPA was drafted by the kind of people who think The Ox-Bow Incident is a how-to manual on law enforcement. It is the mindset that sees a man like McVeigh challenging his execution and says, "How dare he! We are supposed to kill him, because he is GUILTY!" That is not how America is supposed to work. The criminal justice system in this country is meant to ensure that innocent people are not imprisoned or killed even if it means allowing guilty people to walk free and even if it means using tax dollars to pay for guilty people to challenge their conviction.
agwa 14y ago
Well, we're certainly going to disagree about whether the AEDPA is good law or not. I happen to think it abridges liberties, but that's beside the point. The point is that its passage was very much in response to the Oklahoma City Bombings, even if its legacy today has to do with habeas petitions. See this: "But within weeks of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Senate voted 91 to 8 to pass the Comprehensive Terrorism Protection Act of 1995, which cut back sharply on state death-row inmates’ access to federal court. This bill eventually morphed into the broader Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which President Clinton signed shortly after the first anniversary of the bombing. Standing on the south lawn of the White House, in the presence of family members of the victims of Oklahoma City and other recent terrorist incidents, the president declared that the new law “strikes a mighty blow” against terrorism." [1] And also [2], which notes that a draft of the AEDPA also contained additional surveillance powers, among other things. I'd definitely call the AEDPA a knee jerk reaction. [1] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/homegrown-hurt/ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/homegrown-hu... [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=H_RrLyV9rDUC&lpg=PA31&ots=OqO1HPrbuY&pg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=H_RrLyV9rDUC&lpg=PA31&#...
- rayiner 14y ago
  Just because a bill is motivated by an event does not make it a "knee-jerk" reaction. There has to be some element of "poorly thought out." AEDPA is a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem it addresses.