Abstract
Since the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, the United States have been in a continuing state of emergency. The formal state of exception is one element of a two-headed development: the expansion of executive force accompanied by the reduction of democratic control mechanisms and legal protections from abuse. The balance of power between the branches has shifted and the limits of the legitimate exercise of state force have become blurred.
In the process of re-balancing liberty and security in the face of an exceptional threat, fundamental principles of the US democratic system and of international law, such as the right to privacy, due process, or the prohibition of torture have been limited and violated. Are these measures necessary to counter terrorism effectively or do they jeopardize what shall be protected: the liberal democratic tradition and constitution of the United States? I argue that rather than ensuring security, the two-headed development erodes founding stones of the US democratic system—liberty, equality, due process, the separation of powers in a system of checks and balances. They impair the enforcement of international norms and complicate international cooperation.
Zusammenfassung
Seit den Terroranschlägen vom 11. September 2001 befinden sich die USA im Ausnahmezustand. Der formale Ausnahmezustand ist ein Element einer zweiteiligen Entwicklung: die Expansion exekutiver Gewalt, einhergehend mit der Schwächung demokratischer Kontroll- und rechtlicher Schutzmechanismen gegen den Missbrauch dieser Gewalt. Die Balance zwischen den Gewalten hat sich verschoben und die Grenzen legitimer Gewaltausübung sind verschwommen.
Im Prozess einer neuen Ausbalancierung von Freiheit und Sicherheit in Anbetracht der terroristischen Bedrohung wurden grundlegende Prinzipien des demokratischen Systems der USA sowie des Völkerrechts eingeschränkt und verletzt, darunter das Recht auf Privatheit, auf ein faires Verfahren oder das Folterverbot. Sind dies notwendige Maßnahmen um Terrorismus effektiv zu begegnen oder setzen sie vielmehr aufs Spiel, was es zu verteidigen gilt: die liberal-demokratische Tradition und Verfassung der USA? Statt Sicherheit zu gewährleisten, so mein Argument, untergräbt diese zweiteilige Entwicklung Grundsteine des demokratischen Systems der USA – Freiheit, Gleichheit, Rechtsstaatlichkeit sowie Gewaltenteilung in einem System gegenseitiger Kontrolle. Sie schwächt internationale Normen und erschwert internationale Zusammenarbeit.
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Notes
“USA PATRIOT” is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”.
On October 24, the House passed the act with 357/66 votes in favor and Senate with 98 YEAs, one NAY, and one Not Voting.
Brendan Nyham (Nyham n.d.) compiled a list of “Republican attacks on dissent since 9/11”, amongst others by John Ashcroft (“to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends.”) or by Tom Davis, Republican, in his reply to Tom Daschle’s, Democrat, comment that the “success in the war on terror ‘is still somewhat in doubt.’ […] [that] ‘Daschle’s ’divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies […]’”.
Already on September 17, Bush in the secret Memorandum of Notification (MON) authorized the CIA to capture, detain, and interrogate terrorist suspects (Senate Select Committee of Intelligence 2014).
Rasul and others had been detained at Guantánamo in January 2002. Before the case came to the Supreme Court, the detainees’ case had been dismissed by US-courts due to a lack of jurisdiction with reference to “aliens held outside the sovereign territory of the United States” (United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 2002. Rasul v. Bush).
More precisely, the court criticized that the accused and his/her legal counsel may be denied access to evidence, such as classified information. Appointed military defense counsel may be forbidden to reveal to the accused what took place in closed sessions. Any evidence that “would have probative value to a reasonable person” is admitted.
According to § 948a MCA, an unlawful enemy combatant is “a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant”.
It is still questionable whether the then granted access to US courts to review the incarceration of Guantánamo detainees is meaningful in the sense the Supreme Court suggested in its decision. A study by Mark Denbeaux et al. argues that “such review have been rendered essentially meaningless by the rulings of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. […]: almost no detainees will prevail at the district court level, and if any do, the D.C. Circuit will likely reverse the decision to grant them relief” (Denbeaux et al. 2012).
The memo includes Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous handwritten comment: “However, I stand for 8–10 h A day. Why is standing limited to 4 h?”.
In July 2015, Congress confirmed the Army Field Manual on Interrogations—which prohibits torture—as standard to all interrogations.
Art. 3 states that “the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) taking of hostages; (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”.
The term refers to an individual who “(A) has engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; ’(B) has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or ’(C) was a part of al Qaeda at the time of the alleged offense under this chapter” (MCA 2009).
Consider the following extract from Title II: “Section 2516(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—(1) by redesignating paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 434(2) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–132; 110 Stat. 1274), as paragraph (r); and (2) by inserting after paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 201(3) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (division C of Public Law 104–208; 110 Stat. 3009–565), the following new paragraph: […]”.
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Förster, A. The expansion of executive force in the War on Terror and its impact on domestic and international norms. Z Politikwiss 28, 535–552 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41358-018-0159-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41358-018-0159-7