Post-9/11 life taken to task

UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on Tuesday urged students at Orange Coast College to keep up with current events and make their voices heard to prevent abuses of power by our nation’s highest authorities in their War on Terror.

In a 45-minute speech to hundreds of students, Chemerinsky, an acclaimed Constitutional law attorney, discussed some of the country’s biggest abuses of power in its history; many, he noted, occurred during times of national crisis.

“Over the last eight years, some of the worst aspects of American history have repeated themselves,” Chemerinsky told the young crowd, referring to the government’s reaction to 9/11, wiretapping, torture and detaining people without due process.

He spoke of President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and FDR’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, as such times that seemed to call for desperate measures.

“In these times of crisis, foreign-based crises, the tendency is toward repression,” he said. “It doesn’t make us any safer.”

Chemerinsky is a widely respected legal scholar who occasionally contributes his opinion to The Los Angeles Times, among other media outlets. His liberal political leanings were front and center in 2007 when he was first tapped to head UCI’s law school, which had yet to be built. UCI Chancellor Michael Drake offered him the job, then rescinded the offer, only to re-offer it again after faculty members and others accused Drake of buckling to pressure from Orange County conservatives.

Careful not to play partisan Tuesday, Chemerinsky took President Barack Obama’s policies to task as well.

He said that in the last eight years under President George W. Bush, and now under Obama, some abuses of power remain, such as holding detainees at Guantánamo Bay without charging them for crimes.

He continued with his criticisms of the government’s post-9/11 actions, saying the government’s wiretapping of phone calls to people overseas without a warrant was a slippery slope and at a whim, the focus could be turned on each one of us.

Chemerinsky noted that torture has been in the news a lot lately, and advocated that under no circumstances should the United States violate international agreements on human rights and treating prisoners of war or enemy combatants.

“There’s no indication that any of this torture kept our country any safer,” he told a mostly agreeing audience. “There are times when the ends don’t justify the means. And the means of human torture is never acceptable.”

What can the next generation of college grads do to keep history from repeating itself? one student asked.

“Be informed, and let your voices be heard,” Chemerinsky said. “The only way we can protect our rights is to protect everyone’s rights.”

Mohammed Aloo, 18, was one of those who came out of Chemerinsky’s discussion energized.

“He made us think about the laws as they apply to U.S. detainees,” Aloo said. “The abuse of power by the executive branch ... it’s a shame.”

Aloo said that he’s been inspired to look more at studying civil injustices and the law, and what he could do personally to change things.