NewsDay: "Citizens Have Legal Rights No Matter What Bush Says"

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

re-post from last year.......


NewsDay: "Citizens Have Legal Rights No Matter What Bush Says"


http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpjus152825017aug15.story

EDITORIAL
Citizens Have Legal Rights No Matter What Bush Says

August 15, 2002


By holding two U.S. citizens in military lock-ups without charges, lawyers or trials, and by insisting that the federal courts have no authority to intervene, President George W. Bush has put himself on a collision course with the U.S. Constitution.

The president is arguably the most powerful man in the world, but he cannot repeal the Constitution by fiat. The federal judiciary should tell him so, and in no uncertain terms.

The latest skirmish in this brewing confrontation occurred this week in a federal court in Virginia. Government lawyers argued in the case ofU.S.-born Taliban fighter Yasser Hamdi that anyone designated as an enemy combatant is stripped of the presumption of innocence and the right to counsel.

Defining the term enemy combatant and determining who fits the designation are matters strictly for the military, according to administration lawyers. That's just not good enough. The White House is handling war-related defendants in so many different ways that it appears a matter of convenience when the Constitution applies and when it doesn't.

more............

[Occulus]

1. The page is blank!

No "404 Not Found". It loads, it's just... blank.

:wtf:

[patdem]

2. Same here...like they used white type on a white page????

:shrug:

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

5. here's the rest .....

well seems NEWSDAT did not archive article.....


soooooo here's the rest of what i had saved......


.....

John Walker Lindh, like Hamdi, is a U.S. citizen captured fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. But Lindh was charged in federal court, had lawyers, appeared repeatedly before a federal judge and ultimately arranged a plea bargain for 20 years in a civilian prison.

Jose Padilla is also a U.S. citizen. Suspected of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb somewhere in this country, he was apprehended as he got off a plane in Chicago. But Padilla was designated an enemy combatant. So unlike Lindh, who actually took up arms against U.S. forces, Padilla is locked in a military brig, without charges, lawyers or the right to a trial.

Then there is Zacarias Moussaoui. The so- called 20th hijacker is not a U.S. citizen, but he's faring better in this constitutional sweepstakes than citizens Padilla and Hamdi. Moussaoui, charged in the Sept. 11 attack, has access to lawyers and has appeared repeatedly in a federal court in preparation for trial.

Rights that can be respected or ignored so arbitrarily are no rights at all.


NEWSDAY

[dfong63]

3. it seems to have aged into paid content

[Dufaeth]

4. :)

And here I was just complaining about people not talking about Padilla! Thanks PFIB, even if the link doesn't work :)

[kodi]

6. not if he calls a person a terrorist and sends in the fbi

is this not what americans fought a revolution against?