NYTimes: Detainee Bill Shifts power to president

[nam78_two]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/us/30detain.html?hp&ex=1159675200&en=4b0651b4401c1962&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Rather than reigning in the formidable presidential powers Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have asserted since Sept. 11, 2001, the law gives some of those powers a solid statutory foundation. In effect it allows the president to identify enemies, imprison them indefinitely and interrogate them — albeit with a ban on the harshest treatment — beyond the reach of the full court reviews traditionally afforded criminal defendants and ordinary prisoners.

Taken as a whole, the law will give the president more power over terrorism suspects than he had before the Supreme Court decision this summer in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that undercut more than four years of White House policy.
>>
And it broadens the definition of “unlawful enemy combatant” to include not only those who fight the United States but also those who have “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” The latter group could include those accused of providing financial or other indirect support to terrorists, human rights groups say. The designation can be made by any “competent tribunal” created by the president or secretary of defense.

>>
Bruce Ackerman, a critic of the administration and a professor of law and political science at Yale University, sharply criticized the bill but agreed that it strengthened the White House position. “The president walked away with a lot more than most people thought,” Mr. Ackerman said. He said the bill “further entrenches presidential power” and allows the administration to declare even an American citizen an unlawful combatant subject to indefinite detention.

“And it’s not only about these prisoners,” Mr. Ackerman said. “If Congress can strip courts of jurisdiction over cases because it fears their outcome, judicial independence is threatened.”



>>
Even if the Supreme Court decides it has the power to hear challenges to the bill, the Bush administration has gained a crucial advantage. In adding a Congressional imprimatur to a comprehensive set of procedures and tactics, lawmakers explicitly endorsed measures that in other eras were achieved by executive fiat. Earlier Supreme Court decisions have suggested that the president and Congress acting together in the national security arena can be an all-but-unstoppable force.

[helderheid]

1. K & R

[AX10]

2. K & R!

[helderheid]

5. I see the K but not the R :)

[Eric J in MN]

3. The writer says another terrorist attack will prove the Republicans right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/us/30detain.html?hp&ex=1159675200&en=4b0651b4401c1962&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"How the measure will look decades hence may depend not just on how it is used but on how the terrorist threat evolves. If a major terrorist plot in the United States is uncovered — and surely if one succeeds — it may vindicate the Congressional decision to give the government more leeway to seize and question those who might know about the next attack."

Selling our liberty for security and getting neither means this is a good bill (?)

What the writer doesn't understand is that a US policy to snatch people from any country and hold them indefinitely without due process will make the US even more hated and more likely to be a terrorist target.

[nam78_two]

4. yeah the interpretations at the end

:crazy:

[hedda_foil]

6. K&R