The top ranking Republican of the House Judiciary Committee introduced legislation today that would compel the Justice Department to confer with the Director of National Intelligence and the secretary of Defense before deciding if a suspected terrorist should be tried treated as a civilian.
Lamar Smith (gov)
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) criticized the Obama administration’s decision to allow FBI agents to interrogate Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and read the Nigerian his Miranda rights when he was captured after he allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his underpants on a Dec. 25 Detroit-bound airplane flight.
“Giving terrorists constitutional rights ignores the seriousness of the threat from al-Qaeda — these are acts of war, not isolated incidents of crime,” Smith said in a statement. “All terrorists should be interrogated by intelligence experts to obtain crucial information about future attacks. Anything less risks the safety and security of the American people.”
DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller defended the decisions, saying in a statement last week that the DOJ consulted national security officials before Abdulmutallab was charged in federal court. But it is still unclear exactly when in the decision-making process the DOJ consulted the nationaly security officials on Abdulmutallab.
Yesterday, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and the panel’s ranking Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to remove Abdulmutallab from federal custody to military detention.
Smith’s bill is co-sponsored by 17 Republicans: John Boehner, Ohio; John Carter, Texas; Buck McKeon, California; Peter King, New York; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida; Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin; Howard Coble, North Carolina; Elton Gallegly, California; Daniel Lungren, California; Trent Franks, Arizona; Louie Gohmert, Texas; Jim Jordan, Ohio; Jason Chaffetz, Utah; Tom Rooney, Florida; Roy Blunt ,Missouri; Hal Rogers, Kentucky; and Don Manzullo, Illinois.
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Lawmakers sparred with National Football League officials and player representatives today at a hearing in the House Judiciary panel’s Courts and Competition Policy Subcommittee about the implications of a Supreme Court case that will assess how antitrust laws apply to the NFL.
The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in American Needle v. NFL, a case that poses the question of whether the NFL is a collection of 32 teams or is a single entity for the purposes of antitrust regulation.
Clothing manufacturer American Needle sued the NFL after the league signed an exclusive deal with Reebok to produce hats and other merchandise with team logos. The company argued that the NFL violated antitrust laws, and that each team needed to independently negotiate such a contract.
Players have been concerned that a broad ruling in favor of the NFL could lead teams to restrict players’ salaries and reverse gains they’ve made as free agents since the 1990s.
A dozen current and former NFL players, including Nolan Harrison, who retired after a 10-year career, and Deshea Townsend, who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, attended the hearing today, and others were on the Hill to lobby Congress on antitrust and other issues.
“Why else would the NFL seek to review a case it won not once but twice?” NFL Players’ Union president, Kevin Mawae, asked at the hearing. The NFL won in the lower courts but joined American Needle in urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. Mawae described the NFL’s strategy as the latest attempt for the league to obtain “the whole grail” of antitrust immunity.
Democrats on the committee echoed the players’ concerns. The case “could affect the free agency concept,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) who chairs the full Judiciary Committee. “The only option would be a players strike.”
The league tried to downplay any impact the case might have on the players. “This case is not about labor relations,” said Gary Gertzog, a senior VP at the NFL, in his opening statement.
The league also argued that the teams could act as a single entity because they competed with other sports and other forms of entertainment for fans.
“The consumer has the ultimate vote,” Gertzog said, arguing that a fan might switch to a different sport if an NFL cap was too expensive.
Other sports leagues backed him up. “It defies economic reality,” said William Daly, a National Hockey League deputy commissioner. ”Sports leagues can’t willy-nilly make decisions that aren’t responsive to the marketplace,” he said.
Republicans on the committee followed the league’s line of reasoning. The subcommittee’s ranking member, Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.), said that manufacturers would be harmed if they had to spend time negotiating license agreements with each team separately.
“This is a case of manufacturer’s remorse: American Needle tried to obtain through litigation what it could not get through negotiation,” Coble said, in a reverse echo of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s comments during the arguments at the high court.
“You are seeking through this ruling what you haven’t gotten from Congress,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said to the NFL’s lawyer during oral arguments. “An absolute bar to an antitrust claim.”
Even if the Supreme Court grants the league partial immunity that shields it from players’ antitrust suits, it might not hurt the players all that much, said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member. Given that “professional sports unions are the wealthiest labor unions around; one wonders whether they need any extra leverage,” he said.
Smith suggested the committee had already given the NFL a lot of attention — three hearings in three months — and said the panel should instead hold hearings on the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against the New Black Panther Party, and on the question of whether to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center.
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