Checks and balances
Your reporter’s oversimplification of my position on the warrantless wiretap issue [“Prof defends Bush wiretaps,” Courts & Crime News, April 11] is an embarrassment to us both. I spent close to 90 minutes on the phone with her trying to be helpful, and your readers deserve better than what you published.
It is certainly not my position that “Dubya can do just about anything he wants when it comes to national security.” My basic point was that the Constitution grants certain important powers to the discretion of the President that were not intended to be “checked” by Congress (or by the courts unless they violate other provisions of the Constitution, such as the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against “unreasonable” searches). As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote of these powers in Marbury v. Madison, “whatever opinion may be entertained of the manner in which executive discretion may be used, still there exists, and can exist, no power to control that discretion…the decision of the executive is conclusive.” In explaining the Constitution to the American people during the ratification debates in 1788, John Jay–who later became our first Chief Justice–explained in Federalist no. 64 that “the business of intelligence” was entrusted to the President’s discretion to be managed “as prudence may suggest.” When Congress first appropriated funds for intelligence in 1790, the statute provided that the President should account only for the “amount” of sensitive expenditures he felt ought not be made public. In 1818, Representative Henry Clay reasoned intelligence expenditures would not be “a proper subject for inquiry” by Congress.
When FISA was enacted, Carter Administration Attorney General Griffin Bell noted that the statute could not “take away the power of the President under the Constitution.” And in 2002, the FISA Court of Review noted every court to consider the issue has “held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information,” and concluded: “We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”
I’ve testified on this issue twice before the Senate Judiciary Committee since late February, and written extensively about the underlying separation of powers issue for nearly three decades. Readers who are seriously interested in the issue can find more on our web page at www.virginia.edu/cnsl.
Prof. Robert F. Turner, SJD
Center for National Security Law
Rape underreported?
I must respond in kind to Deborah Wyatt’s comments that “The rumor that rape is highly underreported—which may or may not be true—”[Mailbag, April 11] with complete and utter amazement and disbelief. It does not take a law degree to look up the Department of Justice statistics, which state that a paltry 5 percent of rapes are
reported. Of those 5 percent, only 3 percent are adjudicated. It is the most underreported crime. And with people like Ms. Wyatt suing victims, it will remain as such. Quite obviously, Ms. Wyatt has never been the victim of a sexual assault or she would not be asserting that rape victims be held to a higher standard of memory. That is the most patently ridiculous thing I have ever heard. In the aftermath of such an attack, it is a small miracle that most victims can remember anything or perform basic tasks. Twenty years after my attack, through therapy, I am still recalling bits and pieces.
Ms. Wyatt may want to educate herself about the subject she is fighting for. When the bill outlawing this kind of further attack on victims passes in the Senate in 2007, victims will no longer have yet another stumbling block for reporting a crime second only to murder in its horrifying nature. Ah, well, everyone needs to make a living, right?
Liz Seccuro
Greenwich, CT
The writer is a witness and the alleged victim in the Commonwealth’s ongoing rape case against William Beebe.
Dog-gone wrong
This letter is a response to John Borg-meyer’s article “The Supreme Court of Florida” [“2006 Muzzle Awards,” April 11], in which he refers to pit bulls as “vicious predator(s)”. Being an owner of two pit bulls, I find this comment completely false and offensive.
Pit bulls are amazing dogs. They are loving, playful, intelligent and loyal. Humans have betrayed this breed by turning their loyalty and strength into negative attributes by fighting them. They are often objectified and used as status symbols, rather than loving animal companions. They are also used as “protection” for illegal activity, such as drug dealing. Any dog and any breed can be trained to fight. Humans are the vicious species.
I am continually fighting ignorant comments such as Mr. Borgmeyer’s. I make every atttempt to educate people who believe the media hype that pit bulls are mean and vicious, when in fact they are usually abused and neglected. Although I tolerate such comments more from the average person, I will not tolerate it from a “journalist.” I expect “journalists” not to make untrue statements and to check their “facts.” Isn’t it their job to report facts and truth? Mr. Borgmeyer should walk down the outside Mall in Charlottesville on a sunny afternoon and notice the many pit bulls being casually walked. He would see that pit bulls are being walked in a public place with many people and dogs, and that the pit bulls are not trying to attack or kill anyone.
Comments such as these, made by the media, continually give pit bulls a bad name. They feed the unknowing public’s fears. I ask that Mr. Borgmeyer apologize for his false comment. I also ask that he do a story on how abused pit bulls are by humans who breed them for fighting and train them to be aggressive. Or if he has the stomach for it, I ask that he look into “hog-dogging” (a form of “entertainment” for people), and see how cruel and vicious humans are towards pit bulls. Maybe he can even “report” how pit bulls are used as rescue and therapy dogs. But if he declines any of these, that’s O.K., because then I can make the generalization that journalists are ignorant liars that just want to print a story without checking the facts. Thank you.
Drew Cerria
Charlottesville, VA
God is in the details
The Virginia Film Festival’s announcement of this year’s theme: “Revelations: Finding God at the Movies” [“Film festival comes to Jesus,” 7 Days, April 11] will undoubtedly give the C-VILLE Weekly staff a reason to sharpen their cumulative wits. I look forward to your reports regarding October’s VFF. You will have the opportunity to crucify Christians, belittle Baptists, mock Methodists, and even poke fun of Pentecostals. Or, maybe, you can examine how Charlottesville, Albemarle and surrounding areas have been positively impacted by the faith community who has endeavored to make a difference for all people regardless of their belief system or world view.
Theologian G.K. Chesterton, said, “Merely having an open mind is nothing; the ob-ject of opening the mind, as of opening
the mouth, is to shut it again on some-thing solid.”
Brian Orahood
Palmyra