Despite being a US citizen Jose Padilla has been held indefinitely in a Naval brig in North Carolina. He has never been charged. And hasn’t seen a lawyer. CNN News
[Jose] Padilla alleged that he was subjected to prolonged isolation; deprivation of light; exposure to prolonged periods of light and darkness, including being ‘periodically subjected to absolute light or darkness for periods in excess of twenty-four hours’; extreme variations in temperature; sleep adjustment; threats of severe physical abuse; death threats; administration of psychotropic drugs; shackling and manacling for hours at a time; use of ‘stress’ positions; noxious fumes that caused pain to eyes and nose; loud noises; withholding of any mattress, pillow, sheet, or blanket; forced grooming; suspensions of showers; removal of religious items; constant surveillance; incommunicado detention, including denial of all contact with family and legal counsel for a 21-month period; interference with religious observance; and denial of medical care for ‘serious and potentially life-threatening ailments, including chest pain and difficulty breathing, as well as for treatment of the chronic, extreme pain caused by being forced to endure stress positions’. United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, May 2012
There is no civil right. Not even the precious right of citizenship that this administration will not abuse to secure ever greater control over American life. Jack Balkin, Yale University
While it is correct to insist that rights should be balanced by obligations, there is a dangerous tendency for obligations – to search for work, to save for pensions – to be imposed upon the poor, while rights – to enjoy low marginal rates of tax, to opt out into privileged private education – are voluntarily exercised by the rich. Will Hutton, The State to Come
It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi? ... I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi. Fannie Lou Hamer, cited Hay Mills ‘This Little Light of Mine’
With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, ’cause that’s what really happens. ibid.
We most certainly do not and will not give protection to civil right workers. J Edgar Hoover
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right-to-work’. It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works’. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining ... We demand this fraud be stopped. Martin Luther King
At the last count more than 30 of the Guantanamo Bay detainees had attempted suicide. Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties. 2004
It is easy to be disgruntled if you are denied rights and freedoms to which you feel entitled. But if you are not coherent, if you cannot put into words what it is that displeases you and why it is unfair and should change, then you are dismissed as an unreasonable whiner. You may be lectured about perseverance and patience, life as a test, the need to accept the higher wisdom of others. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad: From Islam to America
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women’s rights as part of its reforms. Ironically, the section on women’s rights was added by a senator from Virginia who opposed the whole thing and was said to be sure that if he stuck something about women’s rights into it, it would never pass. The Bill passed anyway though, much to the chagrin of a certain Wiener from Virginia. Adam Selzer, The Smart Aleck’s Guide to American History
Do not let us be told, Sir, that we excite a fervour against foreign aggression only to establish a tyranny at home ... We are absurd enough to call ourselves ‘free and enlightened’ while we advocate principles that would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity and establish a code compared to which the ordeal is wise and the trial by battle is merciful and just. Edward Livingston, opposing Alien & Sedition bills in Congress 1798
It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed to arbitrariness with impunity. Alexis de Tocqueville
However distinguished by rank or property, in the rights of freedom we are all equal. Junius, cited Public Advertiser 19th March 1770
I speak of rights. A machine has none. A man must. My client has the right to face his accuser, and if you do not grant him that right, you have brought us down to the level of the machine. Indeed, you have elevated that machine above us. Star Trek s1e20: Court Martial, Cogley
Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence. Rufus Choate, 1799-1859, American lawyer & politician
You are not content with the damage you have already done. So long as there is a lake, a stream, a forest, a grassland, you must manage it, you must dam it, channel it, forest it, can you not leave one thing untouched? Can you not leave one people alone? Can you not honour one promise? Can you not even respect one stream? One nearly extinct breed of fish? And one natural lake? We have rights too. Rights to life that you cannot bestow because they were not yours to bestow. You would take even those from us. James Vidivitch, evidence to the Pyramid Lake Water Rights Hearings
We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for a hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Congress 27th November 1963
Someone forgot the fact that it’s not our government that gives us our freedoms; they are inalienable rights and they cannot be taken away. The people of the United States have simply been conditioned to give their rights away freely. The USA Patriot Act seems less of a tool to fight terrorism and more of an instrument to monitor and track and intimidate every-day law-abiding citizens in this country. One Nation Under Siege, 2006
Citizens deemed enemy combatants can be held indefinitely, with no charges against them, no right to see an attorney, no right to go before a judge. Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11, 2003
The Homeland Security Act which passed about a year later in November 2002 outlines in great detail the degree to which the government can now spy, listen in, record, get access to internet, library cards, bookstore records, medical records, school records ... ibid.
Emergency powers to imprison suspected international terrorists indefinitely using special closed courts will be announced this week. The measure, which will require exception from human rights legislation, will be used to round up about twenty suspects hiding in Britain out of the reach of existing laws. Daily Telegraph article 11th November 2001
The rights of the British people were not handed down from on high but won by the people themselves – at a cost. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 7/8: Industry & Empire, BBC 2012
The Peterloo Massacre inspired new forms of social action. ibid.
In 1791 he [Thomas Paine] published his counterblast – the Rights of Man. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s3e1: Forces of Nature, BBC 2002
The Levellers published their demands for human rights and democratic reform in a manifesto called The Agreement of the People. Roundhead or Cavalier: Which One Are You? BBC 2012
The average American would be so shocked to find out there’s something called COINTELPRO – the FBI’s covert programs against American citizens ... Report 94/755 called Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports of Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. This is a hearing that occurred in 1976 ... This Senate report tells what the FBI was doing against the American citizens ... There’s no mention of protection of First Amendment Rights, of protecting any rights. Joyce Riley, co-producer Beyond Treason, interview One Nation Under Siege, 2006
We are talking about a constitution for the world written by people who don’t care about our freedoms as individuals ... The freedoms and rights we take for granted will cease to exist when the New World Order is put in motion. Keith Thompson, New World Order Facts, 2008
We can make this the new civil rights movement, the new human rights movement. Bill Still, The Secret of Oz, 2009
This system has got to go. ibid.
The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. Helen Keller