Outside View: Govt.'s knuckles hit twice ( Bob Barr )

[Judi Lynn]

Outside View: Govt.'s knuckles hit twice
By Bob Barr
A UPI Outside View commentary
Published 12/28/2003 2:35 PM
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- If in fact the administration of President George W. Bush takes seriously its oft-avowed adherence to the rule of law in fighting the evils of terrorism, it ought to follow, not fight, the two decisions just handed down by two federal courts of appeal on opposite sides of the continent. Unfortunately, the administration already has said it would rather fight than follow these decisions.

The first decision, rendered by the oft-maligned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California, relates to the hundreds of detainees being held at the United States Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than 600 people various nationalities (from Afghanistani to Australian) have been held (many for more than two years) at a U.S. facility, without having been afforded a single court appearance or meeting with a lawyer; and the administration has opposed every effort to allow any federal court to even decide the threshold question of whether they are being detained unlawfully.

While the federal judges in San Francisco decided the sole and narrow question of whether the Guantanamo Bay facility constitutes territory under the jurisdiction and control of the United States in the affirmative, they also correctly noted that the proposition being advanced by the government was breathtaking in its scope: the U.S. Executive Branch can detain any foreign person, indefinitely or permanently, without access to a lawyer, without charging them, even subjecting them to physical torture or death if the government so desired, simply because the territory in which such power is exercised is not subject to the control or jurisdiction of the United States.

Of course, once one catches one's breath after the scope of the power asserted by the government sinks in, one is struck by the artificiality of the government's position that Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is not territory subject to the control and jurisdiction of the United States.
(snip/...)

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031222-024823-9847r

[louis-t]

1. I'm still catching my breath...

from reading the Patriot Act. I'm also wondering what I would do if Ashcroft decided that I was somehow a threat to the nation. Very scary.

[mikehiggins]

2. If Ashcroft decided you were a threat to the nation. We'd never know it.

And we'd probably never hear from you again either.

Neither would your family or your boss and most especially not your lawyer.

That is the vote all the Democrats should be ashamed of.

[GCP]

3. This is our old friend Bob Barr who made Clinton's life hell?

My God, has he seen the light?

[The Zanti Regent]

4. Barr is just slighted that he got kicked out of the bund.

Please, Barr is the same old Nazi.

He's just pissed that he got kicked out of the Bund and they won't let him back in!