Political Parties On Civil Liberties
What is the major parties' stance on separation of church and state?
The conservative ideology, social conservatives, which tend to be more religious and the Republican party which has had a constituency that's more religious says, "Separation of church and state, yes" which means no official state endorsement of any particular religion. There's no official state religion, like Islam in Iran, or something else like that. Or like the Congregational Church in New England up until the 1830s. But that doesn't mean that there has to be absolute neutrality on religion, and you can't allow religion into the public square. So, for instance, the Republican party's more willing to accommodate religion in things like school vouchers which is public money given to parents and they can choose to go to a Catholic school or an Evangelical school or a Jewish school, whatever, so the public money can go to religious institutions as long as the state isn't saying, "This religion is more legitimate than this religion" directly. The Democratic party and its more liberal, more secular constituency is looking more for a strict neutrality. Much more for a government's non-involvement, to the point of government actually trying to run away from religion in some aspects. So that things like vouchers, they say, "No, you can't do that." Or the faith based initiative, which were federal grants being given to things like Salvation Army, or Catholic charities. Or to do welfare and social work, and that sort of thing. They say, "You can't do that," because indirectly it might lead some people to think that the government favors one religion over another and you can't do that. So they're looking for much more of a clear gulf of bigger separation between government and religion so that there's no perception of any sort of entanglement. Whereas the Republican party and the more religious conservatives are more accommodating of religion in the public square.
What is the major parties' stance on illegal wiretapping?
The Republican party is more willing to fall in line with the George W. Bush administration. Their National Security stance says sometimes wiretapping is necessary, because you can't tip off the people that you're wiretapping, otherwise it's useless. That's one of their main reasons for doing that, it has to be secret in order to actually gain the information that you need. Once these people find out you're wiretapping them, then they'll change their activity and you won't gain any important information. The problem is that it's warrentless, and that gives the state ability to abuse its power. That's where Democrats and Civil Libertarians come in and say we're really worried about the state being able to abuse its power by not having a judge look this over, or a judge that's not part of the Secret FISA court or something else like that, where it's in the public record. If it's in the public record we can keep an eye on government more. Yeah, that might mean you can't do law enforcement as vigorously as you want, but that's a small price to pay for keeping civil liberties intact.
What is the major parties' stance on warrantless searches?
In terms of warrantless searches, again you get a divide between the republican party and the democratic party on national security and civil liberties. Warrantless searches are sometimes necessary, sometimes a law enforcement official will spot something that they didn't have time to get a warrant for, for example a cop pulls you over in your car and he can smell the decaying body on your truck. Republicans and Conservatives are more keen to give law enforcement leway, create qualifications for, situations in which you need a warrant except to this situation now and they are willing to warrant great exemption for that. And they are also more willing in terms of the warrantor; to allow law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to conduct warrantless searches because otherwise it could jeopardise the law enforcement operation if they took the time to go to court and it was in the public record. Whereas the Democrats are more concerned with civil liberties and by having the event in the public record a person knows exactly why they are getting the warrant, when they got it, what your purpose was so that there is no abuse of power.
What is the major parties' stance on freedom of the press?
Freedom of the press, in general, the Republican Party has been less supportive of freedom of the press though in general more supportive of freedom of the press than you'll find in Britain or France or Germany or other democracies. America is more supportive of freedom of the press than many other democracies, and that includes the Republican Party. However the Republican Party and conservatives are more willing to put restrictions on the press's ability, especially in terms of the war on terror. For instance, when the press – The Washington Post, the New York Times, and others – broke the story about holding people in secret prisons in other countries or about the warrantless wiretapping of phones. They said, “Now that shouldn't have been broken, because it curtailed law enforcement's ability to actually listen in on people who are planning terrorist exercises and terrorist funding, and that's a national security issue, and the press needs to be responsible or there needs to be some sort of limits on them being able to do that.” Whereas the Democrat Party tends to be that party that is more nostalgic for the Watergate and Bob Woodward breaking Deep Throat and breaking the Watergate scandal and using journalism as a check against the government. Which means the media needs to be free from government, government authority, or the government's ability to say, “We don't like that story. It doesn't make us look very good so you don't get to run it.” And so they're more willing to side on the side of the media even if it means that sometimes that national security or other issues become problematic. In terms of anonymous sources both parties have gone both ways on this, depending on whether the anonymous source hurts them more or hurts the other guy more. So this is one of those things that's more opportunistic than a principled stance in many ways. Different people can look at that differently. And that's my take, a little bit, is that for anonymous sources, the parties tend to take more opportunistic stances.
What is the major parties' stance on a national ID card?
In one sense, you would think that the Republican Party being the party of national security is more likely to say, "Hey, this is a security issue so we are definitely more willing to put National ID cards or facial recognition software in airports and other things can have Big Brother looking out to make sure that we are safe." But on the other hand, the Republican Party is also full of libertarians who like government as small as possible and they don't want ID cards. They hate Big Brother. So there is a real tension in the Republican Party over this. And with the Democratic Party too, there is a tension over national ID cards too. You got civil libertarians who worry about Big Brother but you also got people in the Democratic Party who understand one thing, that national ID cards and other things can make the welfare state more efficient and can support the welfare state, providing services to people more efficiently and effectively easier. And some of these Big Brother issues cross party lines and there are definitely divisions within the parties about different issues.
