If This Bill Passes IT'S OVER - Democratic Underground

Jcrowley

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Sun Sep-17-06 07:43 PM
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If This Bill Passes IT'S OVER

This proposal is being unveiled NOW in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush is After Our Rights
by Marie Cocco

To turn our eyes momentarily from the terrifying war in the Middle East is to discover an ever-more ominous turn in the Bush administration's war on terror.

Having been barred by the Supreme Court from treating foreign terrorism suspects as if they had few — or no — legal rights, the president's initial response is not to comply with the high court's finding that detainees must be treated under accepted standards of international law. In fact, the White House pushes to extend the ill treatment to American citizens.

That is, effectively, what the administration's draft of new rules for the military detention and trial of terrorism suspects would do. News and human rights organizations that have obtained the document, marked "deliberative draft — close hold," have criticized the way in which it would obliterate the Supreme Court's ruling. It seeks to have Congress write into law essentially the same procedures for military trials that the high court just said were illegal. That is, terrorism suspects still could be excluded from the courtroom, evidence could be withheld from the defense, and the Geneva Conventions — which the Supreme Court explicitly said must apply, would be circumvented.

More chilling is that the draft makes clear that the president wishes to impose these conditions upon any American citizen he calls an "enemy combatant."

A copy of the draft made public by The Washington Post shows that, while an initial version anticipated military trials only for "alien" enemy combatants, the word "alien" is subsequently crossed out. Instead, the document refers time and again to "persons" who are detainees. A "person," under this draft, could be an American seized at a shopping mall, or in a suburban backyard.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0802-28.htm

We're All Enemy Combatants Now

Today in the Senate Judiciary Committee the Bush administration will unveil proposed new legislation to respond to the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. A final version of this legislation remained concealed right up to the day before the Senate hearing. Such secrecy disarms the public—and more importantly for today’s hearing, congressional staffers who need to brief their bosses—from analyzing and understanding the draft. This secrecy, aside from some leaked drafts of the bill, should sound alarm bells about what the administration is about to propose.

It appears the legislation moves two steps back for every step forward it takes in responding to problems identified by the Supreme Court. More dangerously, the administration’s proposed legislation likely will seek to assail vital checks and balances in subtle, invidious ways that might escape Congress’ attention.

Strictly speaking, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdan concerned only the president’s deeply flawed and procedurally irregular military commissions at Guantánamo. Yet any legislative response is likely to sweep further than the relatively narrow matter of how persons detained in battle can be tried for violations of the law of war. Administration testimony before Senate and House committees reveals the White House’s concern with issues of larger dimension: They are quietly looking for Congress’ seal of approval on a system of expansive military detention for both citizens and non-citizens.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/02/were_all_enemy_combatants_now.php