Comparisons to the 1970s Soviet Union

[Volokh, Eugene]

    Can I ask Mark to be a bit more specific on this?  One chief complaint
about Soviet human rights in the 1970s was the punishment of people for
expressing anti-Soviet views; that would be clearly unconstitutional under
U.S. constitutional law.  Another was the suppression of religious activity
in a wide variety of coercive ways; also clearly unconstitutional.  A third
was the refusal to allow people to leave the country -- I don't think
there's a clear constitutional doctrine on this in the U.S., but this is
because excepting extraordinary circumstances, the U.S. has always been much
more interested in controlling who gets in rather than who leaves.

    If Mark has some specific examples in mind, I'd be interested in hearing
them.

    (Note that Mark is referring to a thread on the RELIGIONLAW list, which
asks whether it would be constitutional to bury terrorists who are Muslims
in pigskin -- as some in Russia today are suggesting should be done -- on
the theory that this may deter future Muslim terrorism; I mention this
simply to make clear what the post below refers to, and not to bring the
thread back to this list.)

    Eugene

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Graber [mailto:MGRABER at GVPT.UMD.EDU]
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 5:43 AM
To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
Subject: Buried in Pigskin


As I read the "buried in pigskin" thread, the following thought occurred.
Suppose you believed that factual justifications proffered by the Soviet
Union during the 1970s for what we thought were individual rights
violations. How many of them under present administrative rationale would
clearly be unconstitutional?  Is the most important difference between the
United States and the former Soviet Union that we tend to think
justifications for rights violations in the latter entirely pretextual?

Mark A. Graber

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