Attorneys for Guantanamo Detainees could be detained as Enemy Combatants

[kerry-is-my-prez]

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=zQrItml3Gv&Content=845

ATTORNEYS FOR GUANTANAMO DETAINEES COULD BE DETAINED AS ENEMY COMBATANTS UNDER NEW LEGISLATION

President Given Undue Power to Silence Critics
Synopsis

On September 26, 2006, attorneys for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) determined that what appears to be the final version of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 could allow the government to detain the attorneys themselves as 'enemy combatants.' CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman said: "This ominously broad definition of enemy combatants would mean that almost anyone who actively opposes the President or the government could be locked up indefinitely. This bill makes a mockery of the rule of law."


The current version of the Military Commissions redefines an "unlawful enemy combatant" (UEC) so broadly that it could include anyone who organizes a march against the war in Iraq. The bill defines a UEC as "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or anyone who "has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense of the United States." The definition makes no reference to citizenship and therefore could be read to include any number of individuals, including:

CCR attorneys and other habeas counsel, Federal Public Defenders and military defense counsel for detainees at Guantánamo Bay
Any person who has given $5 to a charity working with orphans in Afghanistan that turns out to be associated in some fashion with someone who may be a member of the Taliban
The bill also currently includes provisions so sweeping that they strip U.S. courts of jurisdiction over habeas petitions by any non-citizen detained by the government anywhere. Because there is no geographic limitation in the bill's language, it would allow the President to detain any non-citizen without their ever having the chance to challenge their detention in court: "No court... shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination." Examples of people who could be detained indefinitely with no access to a court include:

A foreign tourist wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt at the Statue of Liberty
A protester at an immigration rally who has lived in the U.S. since she was six months old and is a lawful, permanent resident
CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren said: "This new version of the legislation grants the President frightening power to silence his critics. Habeas corpus is, like voting, one of the fundamental rights of democracy. The President's efforts to exercise the privilege of kings must be turned back, before the so-called 'war on terror' turns on our own citizens."

[Ignacio Upton]

1. This is scary shit!

:scared: Welcome to the new America. That Bill of Rights was fun while it lasted.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

2. A foreign tourist wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt at the Statue of Liberty

n/t

[kerry-is-my-prez]

3. And I wouldn't doubt that they'd jail them either - w/all the harrassment

they get.

[LittleClarkie]

4. Scary, indeed.

K&R

[kerry-is-my-prez]

5. Those attorneys are absolute heros. The crap they have to deal with.

n/t

[Dem2theMax]

6. We knew all along why they were building the detention centers.

Here's the proof.

:mad:

[converted_democrat]

11. My thoughts exactly.. n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Note the operative word, "non-citizen".

The next step would be for the federal government and the courts to strip citizenship and make you susceptible to these military courts. All you would have to do is to oppose government policy.

[annabanana]

14. Please see #13, below. . . . n/t

[Vidar]

8. We could just shoot them like we do Saddam's lawyers.

[tpsbmam]

9. They've already been threatened....

I'm sure this attorney isn't alone:

From today's Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329586568-111575,00.html

<snip>
A British lawyer who represents detainees at Guantánamo Bay yesterday claimed he was threatened with internment at the notorious camp by a US military officer.

<snip>
He said the alleged intimidation reached a peak last summer during a mass hunger strike. In August 2005, he said, "a military lawyer took me into a cell and said it would be for me, as he alleged I was behind the hunger strike. They have been making stuff up about the clients and now they are making it up about me."

[midnight]

10. I was wondering if anyone remembers the ,female american

attorney, that was representing a victim in this terror assault on the world. One of the first cases, I remember reading about, who was affected by the patriot act. This female attorney was put in jail for, conversations and transporting written communication out of the jail cell. Some type of paper work for his family.

[malaise]

12. Be afriad

Be very afraid.

[annabanana]

13. Not just foreigners!!

The criteria for being able to declare someone an "enemy combatant" was just softened in such a way that it COULD include American citizens...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501514.html

The knock on the door in the middle of the night is no longer the SS.

edit for excerpt (emphasis mine):
"The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant. It is broader than that in last week's version of the bill, which resulted from lengthy, closed-door negotiations between senior administration officials and dissident Republican senators. That version incorporated a definition backed by the Senate dissidents: those "engaged in hostilities against the United States."

[hootinholler]

15. Then they might just as well come get me now.

Bring it on Shrub!

-Hoot