|
September 2001
- An excerpt from
the September 15, 2001 Cluesonline™ newsletter:
 FROM
THE EDITOR:
Last Saturday,
I attended a University of Oregon football game with one of my daughters, and
her two sons. Young, intelligent, adults struggling to balance within themselves
the often painful questions and issues that confuse those who are descendants of
both the Native Americans who were the victims of the genocide levied against
them by the conquering "pioneers", and of the pioneers themselves,
they questioned my reason for standing for the national anthem and the flag. My
explanation that I stand to honor our family members who fought, and some died,
for our right to make such decisions as whether or not to stand for a flag was
met with questioning, slightly accusing, eyes and little comment.
Last Tuesday,
those same young men were calling me at my Illinois home devastated and
uncontrollably angry that terrorists would dare to come into our country and
kill innocent people. The questions of just three days prior are not answered,
of course, but they are put away for another time and place. For on Tuesday, two
young men who have had a relatively easy life in a generation whose only actual
knowledge of war and conflict has been in history classes or on television news
of far away countries, got a lesson in patriotism that none of us would have
ever wished for them! Indeed, several generations learned on a moment's notice
the meaning and importance of patriotism.
The loss of
lives this past week, the heroism, the debates, the renewed patriotism, have
occupied our every waking moment. Most of you are probably overdosing on
television, as I have been doing. And from the conversations that I've had with
many of you, I know that you were struck with the same realization that in the
early morning hours of September 11, 2001, life as we have known it changed
forever. INVESTIGATION, as we have known it, changed forever.
Who will now
believe that our clients may not be guilty? Someone has to pay for the hurt
we've experienced, someone has to be found guilty for the losses we've suffered.
And if the juries can't find those guilty parties to punish, our clients will
pay the price. Remember the backlash in the courtrooms when juries saw OJ before
them every time a Black man was on trial? This will be many times worse, I fear.
Who the jurors are, what they believe, and what they do in their everyday lives
will become of the utmost importance to our clients. We have to look at defense
cases with a renewed interest in the composition of the jury.
And what of our
clients who are taking a stand against corporate America for the deliberate acts
that have caused death and maiming from products knowingly manufactured with
built-in defects? What jury is going to fairly compensate these people when we
are being deluged with stories of how wonderful the corporations are being in
our nation's time of need, and of how horribly crippled they are by the
financial losses?
And who will now dare to defend
our civil rights? Will our every protest against government interference in our
lives become reason for increased government interest in our lives? Who will
believe that our clients' civil rights were violated by the now heroic police
and other government agents?
Just today the
FBI and other agencies requested the right to track PEOPLE rather than cell
phone records. These police agencies are now at liberty to drag people off
planes for little reason other than someone thought that they looked suspicious.
Search warrants are suddenly as simple to obtain as the daily newspaper. What
judge will be brave enough to deny them, when they're supposedly requested in
the interest of national security?
In a country
where the media shapes opinions, where we seldom stop to analyze what is being
reported, we are being led down a path of civil rights destruction by
cheerleader journalists so eager to report their latest scoop that they do not
understand that they are cheering the destruction of our rights as citizens of
the greatest nation on earth. Will we, as investigators, have the intelligence
and courage to stand up and question the legitimacy of these actions? Will we be
spending as much time, money, and energy on protecting our civil rights as we
have been doing to protect our access to public records? Will we go so far
overboard in helping the government keep information from the bad guys that we
shoot ourselves in the foot?
Will we have
the courage to stand up against those who quickly judge an entire people by the
acts of a few cowards? Just last Wednesday I ate lunch with a woman who found it
necessary to curse the people she has decided are guilty of these atrocities.
Barely a generation past immigration to this country herself, she nevertheless
found it necessary to loudly proclaim her prejudices in a crowded restaurant. My
protests fell on deaf ears, and I couldn't finish my lunch. Where will we find
the answers to not only quiet these people, but to soften their hearts?
Today's
watchword seems to be "material witnesses". The TV reporters are
gleefully reporting that material witnesses may be confined, jailed, kept
secluded, without being arrested, until the government agents decide what, if
anything, to do with them. We must realize that ANYONE could be determined to be
a material witness! Who will stand up for those deemed by the government to be
material witnesses? Who will defend their civil rights in light of the nation's
paranoia?
Most of us were
probably quick to proclaim that we hoped we didn't get the call to help defend
"those people." We are happy, we think, that there won't be much
investigation to do for them. We must THINK AGAIN! Why would we jump to the
conclusion that the arrested people are the GUILTY people? Have we learned
nothing as investigators?
We have
important questions to ask ourselves. These questions must be asked, and
answered, not only for the preservation of our own rights and jobs, but for the
generations to come. There are different kinds of freedom. Right now we are
terrified of what happened, and what could still happen. But the loss of life,
no matter how devastating and horrific, will pale in comparison if we let this
become a runaway train loaded with the precious freedoms for which our ancestors
gave their lives. How will we answer our great-grandchildren when they ask,
"Where were you when America lost her freedom?"
Please send
responses to gecastle@cluesonline.com |
