Ron Wyden Townhall
Recorded on July 13, 2024, at Linn Benton Community College in my hometown of Albany, OR. I asked Senator Ron Wyden if he would look into why #GIJustice is Missing In Action.
Transcript:
Logan M Isaac: To be frank, I feel much like the first gentleman. But often when I say what I'm going to say next, people look at me with fear in their eyes. Because we think that veterans are broken, angry, volatile, dangerous so I'm going to try and I'm going to try and take your record and your your composure in the meeting so far as a hopeful sign. But I wanted to ask a question about civil rights for military, but in order to understand the question, I do have to give you some context.
July 20th, 2009, you signed Amendment 1616 to the NDAA for 2010. Amendment 1616 was known by its introducer, Jeff Sessions, as the Soldier's Amendment. The Soldier's Amendment became Section 4712 in Hate Crimes Protection Act of 2009.
Soldier's Amendment extended similar but not identical protections from hate crimes to service members and their families up to five years after discharge. Section 4712, when you call the DOJ, the FBI, the United States Commission on Civil Rights, they've never heard of it. In 2019, the United States Commission on Civil Rights did a 10 year anniversary on the HCPA "In the Name of Hate,", and they left out (Section) 4712. When I brought it to their attention, they ended a zoom call early. And then they hid behind their general counsel.
Section 4712, protecting service members and their family from hate crimes, became federal law, Title 18, Section 1389, not with the rest of the HCPA [in 18 USC 249]. In the 15 years that has passed, almost every single year there's been an incident of a military family or military personnel being targeted by other Americans for hate crimes. Some of them are violent.
In Cincinnati, an American had a detailed plan to break into the home of a soldier, behead him, his wife, and children, and then go blow up the military police station nearby. There have been a number of communicated threats to service members. The most recent was Travis Martin made a phone call to an [Military Police officer] in Schofield Barracks, where I was last assigned and where I deployed before I was relieved by members of the Oregon National Guard.
Aaron Carter, the MP who took the call from Travis Martin, who said he's going to blow up him and, and shoot him in the face because he took orders from the president. Aaron Carter told me in a phone call that they get calls like that all the time.
The earlier section of HCPA 4702 defines hate crimes as necessary…
SEN Ron Wyden: Can I ask a question, because you're making very good points and I'm scribbling as fast as I can this section and that section. This all surrounds, I want to check this, the vote that was cast in 2010 on hate crimes, is that right?
Logan M Isaac: The bill, correct.
SEN Ron Wyden: The bill, go ahead, please.
Logan M Isaac: Yep. Aaron Carter said this happens all the time, we get all these calls.
Section 4702 in the definitions of the HCPA says hate crimes are special category because you're not selected because you're wrong, you're selected because you're white or you're a certain age or a certain sex. But 18 USC §1389 has never been enforced.
When I've called just to ask DOJ and FBI if they know about it, they don't. So that means all those individuals that plan to behead the service member, for example, were intercepted and they were arrested and charged under domestic terrorism, but that doesn't protect me and my family.
I've been, for several years, trying to bring this to the federal level's attention.
Mayor Johnson knows about it. I met with him at coffee a couple of months ago and talked about it. But from the top down, no civil rights are coherent, consistent, or enforced for military service members. And my last, my question is pending, I promise. Hate crimes is only the most high contrast.
Employment discrimination; there's a law that the DOL is supposed to enforce and doesn't. The EEOC, Department of Ed[ucation], Civil Rights, HUD's [office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity], all exclude veterans from their protection. That means that Mayor Johnson has less protections than a civilian neighbor. If they go to a landlord to try and rent, that landlord can say, "All veterans are baby killers." Mayor Johnson can get prohibited from renting fair housing, but a civilian black American couldn't, or it would be harder to.
So Martin Luther King said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. What he means Is that privilege is only as strong as until somebody decides that as a veteran I'm dangerous or volatile, or I'm homeless, or I have that nobody that cares about me.
So my question is coming, I promise. When we were in Maryland, I got Representative [David] Trone to send a dear colleague letter within the House. Six Representatives signed it, to FBI director Christopher Wray, who's still there, and then-Attorney General William Barr. They never responded to a Congressional letter signed by six sitting Congressmen.
Will you do the same in the Senate, to Christopher Wray, referencing that earlier letter that was addressed to him, and get other Senators to start closing the loopholes and make sure that GIJustice is no longer Missing In Action?
SEN Ron Wyden: You have made a very articulate presentation. First, are you and your family, in your view, being discriminated against in respect to your civil rights? For some reason, I heard of evangelical, that nature, do you feel that you all as of right now, are being discriminated against?
Logan M Isaac: That's a trick question; it doesn't matter if I "feel" it, I have been, I can document it, but no lawyer can take it. The USCCR…
SEN Ron Wyden: Say no, say no more.
This is such an important issue that the gentleman is talking about. And I will tell you, as I listened to it, I was kind of fired up. You should know, my wife agreed to marry me. She said, because you're not a real lawyer. I was directing the Grey Panthers, the legal aid office. And she said, you wouldn't even know how to sue me if you wanted to.
Kidding aside, I'm not a lawyer in practice or anything. I'm but the underlying principle of what you're talking about goes right to the heart, folks, of what's important in America. And that is, none of us are free if one of us isn't free. That can happen. The Civil Rights Statute, I'm going to go back and kind of check through it, I think is what the Congress voted on in December of 2010. I'm pretty sure that's it. One of the other reasons I know that is because the day we were supposed to do it, I was prepping to donate my prostate to Johns Hopkins, and I was in a lot of pain. And I showed up to vote, and everybody was pretty amazed because I thought civil rights was so important.
And no matter what the possible, you know, group is that is singled out for discrimination, discrimination is wrong. It's just wrong. Some of you may know, I was the first member of the Senate to support marriage equality. In fact, during that campaign, everybody said, Nope, if you don't like gay marriage, don't get one.
Here, the gentleman is talking about affirmative acts that ensure that everybody who ought to be protected, hate crime statutes, which I'm pretty sure is 2010, is protected. I'll follow up with you. We'll do it quickly. I'm glad that you're here. And my only view, as I've said, is that if somebody's not free None of us are free because you're undermining the principle of the rule of law.
There's a specific statute here and I was scribbling all the times. This one went into this one and went, but I think I get the drift. And you and your family deserve a fair shake, which means a society that treats everybody with respect to civil rights under the law that was spelled out. We'll get on it.
Mayor Alex Johnson: Thank you.
