Denationalization, Citizenship and Disloyalty

Minister Avigdor Lieberman, champion of the "loyalty oath" campaign (which he initiated back in 2004 and made it a part of his concept of the peace negotiations as well in 2009) here in Israel in response to specific Arab instances of possible disloyalty and acts of subversion, did not write this:

Citizenship law, then, must be one tile of our intricate national security mosaic. By citizenship law, I mean the set of legal rules...that prescribe how individuals may become citizens, how they may lose that status, and their access to additional citizenships...The issue of political loyalty — what it means, how it can be measured, and especially the risk that powerful officials might question and manipulate it at the cost of our precious individual liberties — is always fraught. This is a very old issue...In a liberal polity whose paramount values are individual freedom and limited government, citizenship law must not be too intrusive, demanding, or subject to government discretion....Extreme caution is warranted, yet in high-stakes politics is seldom exercised. As we confront the risk of domestic terrorism, we must always keep this countervailing risk to our liberty and communal trust very much in mind.

Nor this:

...An ostensibly easier route for the government is to seek to strip the terrorist of his...citizenship. This denationalization (sometimes called expatriation) would be easier because it is a civil and not a criminal remedy. Hence, the government’s procedural and evidentiary obstacles would be lower, and once denationalized, he could be deported...

And neither this:

We must also continue to cultivate a culture pervaded by patriotism and respect for differences, and maintain and improve a system of legal and political remedies for legitimate grievances...

They were written by Peter H. Schuck, Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale University, this past December.

Did you know that the United Kingdom amended its Nationality Act to permit the Secretary of State to revoke the citizenship of naturalized or even of birthright citizens, to be followed by deportation? (page 2853 in this 2007 article)

Think about that.

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