"Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall."
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "On
important issues, like the balance between liberty and
security, if the public doesn't care, then the
security side is going to overweigh the other," she
said. That would change, Ginsburg said, "if people
come forward and say we are proud to live in the USA,
a land that has been more free, and we want to keep it
that way."
Save the US Constitution, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
Justice Warns Against Civil Rights Apathy
Thu Jan 29, 9:18 PM ET
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
(news - web sites) said Thursday that people concerned
about losing freedom to government anti-terrorism
efforts should speak out.
The Supreme Court is taking up several terror-related
cases this spring, including challenges to the
government detention of terror suspects without legal
rights.
Ginsburg, speaking to a group of women's rights
lawyers, was asked if people's rights were in danger.
"On important issues, like the balance between liberty
and security, if the public doesn't care, then the
security side is going to overweigh the other," she
said. That would change, Ginsburg said, "if people
come forward and say we are proud to live in the USA,
a land that has been more free, and we want to keep it
that way."
Ginsburg, who argued women's rights cases at the
Supreme Court several decades before former President
Clinton (news - web sites) named her to the court in
1993, said "an active public" made the difference in
the victories of feminism.
Ginsburg, now 70 and one of the more liberal justices,
won five of the six Supreme Court cases she argued.
She was reunited Thursday with some of the clients she
represented during an event held in her honor at the
Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
"She was calling to our attention that work in women's
rights, civil rights is under threat," said Lisalyn
Jacobs, who handles government relations for the
National Organization for Women (news - web sites)'s
Legal Defense and Education Fund, which co-sponsored
the event.
The Bush administration has been criticized by civil
libertarians for some of its terror-fighting strategy,
including the detentions of hundreds of foreigners at
a military prison in Cuba and some U.S. citizens in
America.
They are being held without charges or access to
attorneys, something the government maintains is
necessary for national security.
In April the Supreme Court will consider cases
involving detainees in Cuba and America.
The court has refused to take up other cases stemming
from the government's response to the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, including the handling of
immigrants swept up in the investigation.
___