The White House Warden-Congress To Give Bush Power To Lock Up Anyone (LAT)

[kpete]

The White House Warden
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.

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

[bluestateguy]

1. Conservatives should be careful what they ask for

Hillary Clinton will all of those powers at her disposal...

Just imagine.

[TabulaRasa]

4. You have far too much faith in Hillary

She'll use those powers against US long before she upsets any of her new right wing friends.

[xchrom]

2. gulag america.

the republick party must have secretly admired the stalinists for a very long time.

the parallels between stalinist political thought and republick party political is breath taking.

[dogday]

3. First they came for the terrorist....

then they came for the Americans...... Watch out everyone....

[Marr]

5. They needn't have even contributed money to Middle Easter charity.

There is *no* legal recourse for an individual once the government has labeled them an "enemy combatant". You'll have no chance to argue, or even find out what you're accused of.

The Republicans want to give the president- THIS president, the right to pick and choose at will, which Americans are enemies of his terror policies, then toss them in prison and have them tortured, indefinitely. Without legal recourse.