Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) seemed to think concerns over due process being a part of gun control legislation were valid if they came from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in an interview Thursday, but not when they came from Republicans.
The ACLU urged senators to vote against two proposals in the Senate because they used unaccountable government watch lists that violated due process. MSNBC host Steve Kornacki asked Schiff about the criticism from the left-wing organization on Thursday.
"There is actually this concept of the idea of not allowing terrorists to buy weapons. There is bipartisan consensus when you listen to people from both sides of the aisle talk about this," Kornacki said. "Where the breakdown seems to be here though, is over this issue of due process and this is not necessarily a left-right, Democrat-Republican breakdown ... The ACLU is against all of these bills that have come forward in Congress to use the no fly list, this no-fly-no-buy idea you're talking about."
Kornacki mentioned the concern that there was a possibility to discriminate against Islamic- and Arab-Americans with the list.
"They're saying look, you put something like this on the books, you're going to be targeting very specific minority communities in an unfair way. What do you say to that?" he asked,
"Well, for the ACLU, this is very much about due process and they're consistent about that. But for the Republicans, this is a fig leaf because their concern for due process doesn't extend to due process for suspected terrorists who want to board a flight," Schiff said.
"But Congressman, can you address the concern that the ACLU is making? You can dispute whether the Republicans are doing this in good faith or not, but this has been put out there," Kornacki said. "Why is this not a valid concern?"
For Schiff, it suddenly was a "valid point."
"No, listen, I think it's a valid point and I think those due process concerns can and should be met and I think the Senate legislation attempts to do that so that people have a way if they're somehow improperly because of name confusion or otherwise put on a watch list, they have a workable, efficient mechanism to get off the watchlist," Schiff said. "I fully concur with that.
"But what I don't concur with is using this issue as a way to hide the true agenda and I think it's very significant that the Republicans here that claim to have a sudden interest in due process for a suspected terrorists, don't show any interest in due process for suspected terrorists when it comes to when they go to court or when they try to get on a plane. It's only around guns. And why is that? Because the real common denominator here has three initials, and it's the NRA. They run petrified of the NRA and that's really, for the Republicans, what this is all about."