Michael: Kyl slips VAWA a poison DNA pill
Kyl never ceases his inventive assaults on Americans' civil liberties and the public good. Now, mostly likely in a backhanded effort to kill the Violence Against Women Act, Kyl has proposed an amendment which would require the DNA of those who are arrested, but never accused or convicted of any crime, to be placed in CODIS, a national DNA database for law enforment agencies.A vote for Kyl is a vote for more such underhanded and vile ploys to infringe on our Constitutional rights.
For instance, remember those thousands of protestors who were arrested during the GOP convention in NY and never charged? Who in fact sued for violations of their civil rights and won? Consider all those abortion protestors or peace protestors arrested for trespass or on other pretextual bases to get rid of them. Well, under Kyl's little amendment, all those people's DNA would be permantently on record in CODIS now.
Kyl's amendment is a massive violation of Americans' Fourth Amendement rights. Kyl's amendment sucks up the DNA evidence of terror suspects (and we know how discriminating the Federal authorities and armed services have been in detaining terror suspects), illegal immigrants, and anyone accused of many crimes (even petty offenses such a perjury or disorderly conduct), and never spits it out. It would even make giving a DNA sample a condition of bail.
This is an assault on every American's freedom to be left alone, not a needed crime-fighting measure. The amendment's sponsor will claim that there will be ways of removing your DNA from the database under certain conditions. Don't believe it. Once the government has it's claws on your DNA, they will find ingenious bureaucratic means of making sure it stays there which mere mortals cannot confound. Kyl's bill is just another brick in the wall of the police state that he and his Neo-Con confederates are busy building around us all under the pretext of keeping us safe.
Kyl is not just Big Government Conservative; he's a Big Brother Conservative and he wants your DNA. NOW!
posted by Michael Bryan @ 10/05/2005 12:17:00 PM
3 Comments:
"Poison pill" is right... Kyl wants the Violence Against Woman act struck down by SCOTUS, which would make it all the more difficult to resurrect.
Passive-agressiveness and disingenousness are not good qualities in a leader.
Sorry, but I have to comment on this one.
Jon Kyl is a lot of things, and his amendment to VAWA is by no means a good thing, but his goal is definitely not to kill the bill.
He has a solid record of voting for VAWA both in 1994 as a House member and in 2000 in the Senate. He's the only member of the Arizona delegation to do the right thing both times. (So-called "maverick" McCain voted no on one of those occassions)
Let's face it, the guy's a hateful schmuck, but he's one of those rabid law enforcement types who loves this kind of legislation.
The bill wouldn't be killed because of this amendment anyway. It passed the House last week by a 415-4 margin and the Senate this week by unanimous consent. It's hugely politically popular on both sides of the aisle. Democrats won't vote against it even if the amendment stays in the conference version and Republicans won't vote against the final version if the amendment is gone.
You're right in that the part of the law with the amendment is an Unconstitutional provision that will likely be challenged almost immediately after Bush signs the bill into law. And assuming the Supreme Court still has a shred of allegiance to the Constitution and precedent by that point, that one portion of the law will be struck down without affecting the deeply crucial funding and legal protections that comprise the majority of VAWA.
Sometimes you need to make a deal with the devil to get anything positive done. As someone who works daily with survivors, I think this was one compromise that will turn out to be well worth it and one in which we'll eventually be the only beneficiary when the devil's amendment is declared unlawful.
And lest you think I'm some troll, please visit my blog and see how much I take Kyl to the mat on just about everything else: blog.m2powered.com.
Thanks for paying attention to this issue though. We need all the copy we can get dedicated to reauthorization as soon as possible.
Thanks for that cogent analysis Michael. I think you're right he knows he can't (and possibly doesn't want to) kill VAWA. I stand corrected as to Kyl's motive. He can get his Big Brother agenda carried into law on VAWA's broad political shoulders. This wholesale expansion of the use of CODIS would probably not be politically saleable any other way.
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