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Bill Aims to Revoke Citizenship for Turncoats
Thursday, October 24, 2002 - Fox News

WASHINGTON � In the wake of the John Walker Lindh case, a Georgia congressman is introducing legislation that would make it easier to strip U.S. citizenship from turncoats. "Why should he have the right of retaining his citizenship when other people have lost their lives?" asked Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., the author of the No Citizenship for Terrorists Act, which was introduced in the House early this month. Currently, the law makes it virtually impossible to revoke citizenship without the individual�s consent. Lindh, who pled guilty for aiding Taliban forces in Afghanistan before and during the U.S. invasion last October, is serving a 20-year sentence in prison. "The only way John Walker Lindh could lose his citizenship under existing laws is for him to say, �When I took up arms against you, I had the intent of losing my citizenship.�" But one scholar says that�s what the U.S. Constitution intends. In previous years, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned efforts to revoke citizenship for offenses ranging from draft evasion to voting in foreign elections. "Those decisions said that citizenship is a right given by the Constitution itself -- that the 14th Amendment defines who a citizen is and it�s really not within the power of the Congress to take that away," said Emory Law professor Robert Schapiro.

"The 14th Amendment was intended to take the rights of citizenship out of the hands of politicians," Schapiro added. "But in this age of terror, some say America should be able to cast out its citizens who turn on their own country." Johnny Spann, the father of Johnny Mike Spann, the CIA agent killed in the Nov. 25 Taliban prisoner uprising to which Lindh was witness, holds that belief. "We�ve just basically turned him loose," said Spann, referring to Lindh. "In 20 years, he�ll be a free man and at 42, he can start another life."

posted by A Curmudgeon 6:09 AM