While I'm not in a position to have chosen who I'm voting for next election, here's an interview that keeps me from lumping John Edwards into the pile of "no votes". Salon offers free 24 hour memberships for sitting through about 2 minutes of advertisements in case you don't have a membership. You do have complaints about the role the judicial system plays in the war on terrorism, especially when it erodes civil liberties. Can you point to excesses from this administration in its pursuit of national security? Yes, absolutely. One of the things I have proposed is taking domestic intelligence away from the FBI and setting up a more effective intelligence agency. And if that were done I'd also set up an individual civil rights and civil liberties watchdog to monitor what's happening with that agency. It would require record-keeping of data, whether what they're doing on the Internet or if they're monitoring religious entities like mosques or churches. It would make sure there are no constitutional and no civil liberties violations by this agency. One of the things going on right now that I think is unacceptable is the way the Bush administration is dealing with those they call enemy combatants. I know my position on this is not popular, but it's my belief that designating someone, an American citizen, an enemy combatant, and putting them in jail, where they do not have access to a lawyer, where they cannot get a hearing, or go before a judge, where they are not given a chance to prove that they did nothing wrong -- it violates everything we believe in America. I think it's just wrong. |