My talk today is titled Citizenship in a Time of Repression and addresses the responsibilities of citizens, including lawyers, in safeguarding civil liberties. I considered whether to select a blander, less provocative title, but decided that I could not do so, for I feel in my heart that our rights as citizens to the truth and to basic liberties are being repressed by our own government, and that we have to stand up against this erosion of our liberties. The ideas and subjects I will discuss are basic: Language, Liberty, Truth, Secrecy, Openness, Repression, Citizenship, and Lawyers.
Today, the word “patriot” is used to name a statute that, in my opinion, stifles liberty. The term “collateral damage” is used to describe the deaths of children and other innocent bystanders. The phrases “weapons of mass destruction,” “immediate threat,” and “imminent threat” were used by our government to justify a war—phrases that have prompted disturbing and unresolved questions about the evidence upon which the government acted as well as about knowledge and intent. To justify unprecedented violations of the international conventions, applicable statutory law, and established military doctrine, even the word “torture” was twisted and constricted in an indefensible opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel, which the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has only recently withdrawn.