LAT: Bush's Plan Allows Coerced Evidence(does coerced=torture)

[maddezmom]

Convictions could also be based on material unseen by the accused. The Senate may object.
By Maura Reynolds, Richard B. Schmitt and David G. Savage, Times Staff Writers
September 7, 2006


WASHINGTON — President Bush asked Congress Wednesday to approve a new system of military-style justice for terrorism suspects that would, for the first time, permit convictions in American courts based on the use of coerced evidence.

The Bush administration proposal also would permit war crimes convictions based on evidence that was never made available to the accused.

Bush said reliance on such controversial information at trial would be strictly limited, permitted only under a judge's ruling that it was relevant and credible, and that the use of coerced statements would stop short of allowing evidence obtained through torture.

"I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values," the president said, announcing that the new system would be used to prosecute the most notorious detainees in U.S. custody.

The administration's proposed rules resemble those imposed under an executive order that Bush issued shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks; it set up military commissions for terrorist suspects captured overseas, some of whom were sent to the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Supreme Court struck down that system in June, in part because it had not been approved by Congress.

more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-congress7sep07,1,3907286.story?coll=la-news-politics-national&track=crosspromo


Proposal for New Tribunals for Terror Suspects Would Hew to the First Series

By KATE ZERNIKE and NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: September 7, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — Under the measure that President Bush proposed on Wednesday, Khalid Shaik Mohammed and other major terrorism suspects would face trials at Guantánamo Bay in military tribunals that would allow evidence obtained by coercive interrogation and hearsay and deny suspects and their lawyers the right to see classified evidence used against them.

Also in the Guide The Race for the U.S. House Governors' Races The proposed tribunals would largely hew to those that the Supreme Court rejected in June. The measure says Congress would, by approving the proposed tribunals, affirm that they are constitutional and comply with international law, which the Supreme Court said they did not.

Senate Republicans, who have been working on their own bill, said they were wary of the provisions on hearsay and classified evidence and questioned whether the administration had resolved the problems that the court raised.

The Republicans said that the administration had come a long way in resolving differences with Congress in the last month and that they expected to smooth over remaining differences in time to pass a bill before breaking for the final burst of election campaigning.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/washington/07tribunal.html

[flobee1]

1. We dont torture

but I want the laws changed so that info gained from torture to be legal in court



does he think we are as stupid as he is?

[maddezmom]

2. good point

going to edit my headline. :hi:

[Demeter]

5. He Must Be Insane

Does he really think that just because he pays somebody to write it down on paper, it automatically becomes legal and moral? That all on his lonesome Mr. Unitary Executive, the Decider himself, can write his way out of the serious jeopardy he's put himself and all those fellow-travelers in?

If we let him, then WE are the insane ones.

[Eugene]

3. Coerced evidence, secret evidence. Nothing really changes here.

Bush/Cheney is complying with the law in symbol, not substance.
They are moving the "black site" detainees to Gitmo and
giving detainees POW status. That's about it.

The provisions against torture define torture so narrowly
that they are meaningless. Also, the Bushies are still
determined to conduct trials with the exact same problems
the Supreme Court found illegal. They now want Congress
to change law.

[ihelpu2see]

4. Listening to Bush speak = torture!!

[rodeodance]

6. cbs said that Bush is also asking Congress to keep the secret prisons

running (may be empty now)-----but bush said they are needed to protect the american people)

[annabanana]

7. He is still King George..

As long as they waffle and dissemble about what is "torture", and who will be subjected to it, we should make them try it out on their children first.

And when they make lists about what is "banned", always remember that human imagination is limitless when it comes to causing pain.

[wellst0nev0ter]

8. Here's An Idea, Re-Open The Nuremburg (?) Courts

they are open, accessible, speedy, fair and it worked on the REAL fascists in the past.

[Solly Mack]

9. A complicit Congress is a guilty Congress

Guilty of war crimes.

Just because Congress provides a thread of legal protection for Bush's crimes, doesn't mean international law is out the window...the US is still bound by the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3.

"The measure says Congress would, by approving the proposed tribunals, affirm that they are constitutional and comply with international law"

Can't be Constitutional as long as they go against GC, Common Article 3, which has the same force as constitutional/federal law as we are a signatory to the treaty.

Congress is about to legislate war crimes as acceptable....making them a full accomplice to war crimes.


And because Congress has yet to hold Bush responsible for military tribunals he had NO legal authority to instigate, Congress is already guilty of accessory after the fact.


Screw any in Congress that signs on...they are no better than Bush.

[riona]

10. From what I understand

if the "questioning" isn't going well in the prisons, the suspect can be turned over to the CIA for interrogation - and the CIA isn't subject to the same regulations. So, what will this accomplish as far as *'s saying "We do not torture"?

[The Stranger]

11. The prohibition against self-incrimination prevents ANY COERCION.

Jefferson, et al, KNEW that once you went down the slippery slope of coercion you would INEVITABLY end up at torture -- so the Founders gave the accused the right "not to be a witness against himself," preventing ANY SELF-INCRIMINATION.

Again, just when I think it cannot get any worse, it gets worse.

[Evergreen Emerald]

12. this would undermine the whole of our criminal justice system

Our system of checks and balances was implemented to avoid conviction based on unreliable evidence. This is so scary.

[Supersedeas]

13. any mention of coerced testimony should also include al-Libi

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007504.php

<According to a newly declassified memo, not only did al-Libi provide us with false information suggesting that Iraq had trained al-Qaeda to use WMD, but U.S. intelligence had a pretty good idea the information was false as early as 2002. Colin Powell nonetheless presented this to the UN as credible evidence of Iraqi WMD programs in February 2003, shortly before we invaded Iraq.

<Via Atrios, it turns out that we had excellent reasons to be skeptical of al-Libi's testimony. As Newsweek reported last year, al-Libi was one of the first test cases for Dick Cheney's campaign to introduce torture as a standard interrogation technique overseas, replacing the FBI's more mainstream methods:

<Al-Libi's capture, some sources say, was an early turning point in the government's internal debates over interrogation methods...."They duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo" for more-fearsome Egyptian interrogations, says the ex-FBI official. "At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, 'You're going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to f--- her.' So we lost that fight."

<No wonder DIA was skeptical of al-Libi's information. Not only did the details of his testimony seem inconsistent with known facts, but DIA knew perfectly well he had given up this information only under torture and was probably just saying anything that came to mind in order to get it to stop.>


No discussion of this issue is complete without mentioning this case. Notice that the President completely overlooked this name in the list of 'terra' suspects who have given useful information using alternative interrogation practices.

Remember the name, note your sources, confront these Neo-Conservative pigs with facts.