The White House Warden

[katinmn]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ackerman28sep28,0,619852.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Congress may give the president the power to lock up almost anyone he thinks is a terror threat.

By Bruce Ackerman, BRUCE ACKERMAN is a professor of law and political science at Yale and author of "Before the Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism."
September 28, 2006


BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops "during an armed conflict," it also allows him to seize anybody who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison.

Not to worry, say the bill's defenders. The president can't detain somebody who has given money innocently, just those who contributed to terrorists on purpose.

But other provisions of the bill call even this limitation into question. What is worse, if the federal courts support the president's initial detention decision, ordinary Americans would be required to defend themselves before a military tribunal without the constitutional guarantees provided in criminal trials.

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[babylonsister]

1. Criminy, there it is in black and white. Nom. for outrage. nt

[Demit]

2. Chilling sentence—

"Even without this massive congressional expansion of the class of enemy combatants, it is by no means clear that the present Supreme Court will protect the Bill of Rights."

So the people who are trying to find the silver lining in this, the ones who think the Supreme Court will save us—I hope they read this essay by the Yale professor of law. The only quibble I have is with his wording—what he calls "Congress poised to authorize presidential overreaching" I would prefer being stated more plainly: that on this day, Congress has crowned the first King of the United States.

[AX10]

3. Hitler wannabe!

[katty]

4. then they should have bush lock himself up immediately