As a war veteran, I remember my oath when I joined the military.  I agreed to protect and defend our U.S. Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Toward that end, join me in supporting the "no confidence" vote against U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for his attempts to destroy our Constitution. 

I am asking you to combine our strengths and repudiate and remove Attorney General Alberto Gonzales because he wrongly claimed we don't have a right to habeas corpus.  This issue is far more important, with far deadlier consequences, than his attempts to fire U.S. Attorneys based on partisan political considerations.

I believe habeas corpus remains the cornerstone of all our important freedoms in our Constitution.  It is our fundamental safeguard against a tyrannical government dating back to the Magana Carta in 1215.  Habeas corpus limits the king (or president) who tries to lock citizens away in secret prisons, torture us endlessly, throw away the key, and deny us our day in open court.

By destroying habeas corpus, Gonzales, at the request of President George W. Bush, tried to end our freedom of speech, our freedom of assembly, our right to petition, our freedom of the press, our freedom of religion, our freedom from government religion, our freedom to have no religion, and our right to bear arms.

Our precious social contract of being born free also gurantees government limits on searches and seizures. Habeas corpus protects our rights to a public trial, our right to a trial by an impartial jury of our peers, our right to confront witnesses, our right to obtain favorable witnesses, and the right to have an attorney.

If there is no habeas corpus, all other freedoms are in jeopardy.  Enlightenment, reason, tolerance, cooperation, and liberal society then fall prey to the whim of a dictator or the chaos of anarchy.  Shall we lead the way toward freedom, or become the victims of an administration that seeks to perpetuate the exercise of unlimited and violent political and military powers?

You may remember that Veterans for Common Sense opposed Bush's nomination of Gonzales to become Attorney General.  Sadly, all our concerns about his ignorance of the law were shown to be true.

Gonzales needs to read Article I, Section 9 of our U.S. Constitution and be held accountable as a sordid example of how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I ask you, please call your U.S. Senators today and urge them to reject torture and secret prisons. Ask them to restore habeas corpus and a return to using our U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of our Nation.  Ask that they join the no confidence vote against Gonzales.

Finally, in addition to being a veteran, I am also a parent. I am acting now to make sure our wonderful, beautiful, and precous children grow up in the land of the free and the home of the brave, not the home of the imprisoned, tortured, and fearful.