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pecuniumOk, so the "lock 'em up and pound 'em 'til they talk" bill is pretty much a done deal.
What can we do about it?
They didn't allow time for real review and debate. Let's try to take it to them.
Write letters, call the radio shows. Phone your representatives, send e-mails to the television news.
What, you ask, shall I say in these communications? You ask a question. It might help to have the text of the law handy. The best I have is this pdf so it will have to do.
Ask them what defense an american citizen has against being declared an enemy combatant, and further, what one should do if one is so accused.
Be polite, but be firm. Don't let them bamboozle with what the bill is supposed to do (i.e. "provide legal means to interrogate 'terrorist'") but insist on an answer to the actual question.
If this can be pushed out there, if the Republicans can be shown to be behind this kind of blatant power grab (yes, there were feckless dems who supported it, but apart from Lieberman the only choices are worse, so hold your nose this cycle, and look to findig more Lamonts for the next one. Wars are rarely won in battles, but only after campaigns) they can be put back on their heels.
So long as all three branches of gov't are owned, root, rot, and branch, by the same party (and this incarnation of that party) there is no way to roll back the damages to civil liberties.
We can do other things. We can use good rhetoric. We can ask when we becamae a nation of cowards, willing to sacrifice essential liberties for small (and fleeting) security.
We can proclaim the moral high-ground. We can say that, even if this makes a repeat of That Tuesday more likely, we would rather face that death, than this moral decay. We can say, as the Right is fond of saying, some things are so wrong they can never be countenanced.
I, for one, am willing to risk the minor chance at death (6/1,000, over five years, based on the last successful attack by the "jihadists" this is supposed to be saving me from) to be free.
Patrick Henry said it, and I agree with it, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Shall we sacrifice our honor, our morality; as well as our rights and freedoms, in the vain hope that promises of mere safety are fair value for them?
I fear death less than I am willing to sacrifice human decency, I have more scruples than that.
What can we do about it?
They didn't allow time for real review and debate. Let's try to take it to them.
Write letters, call the radio shows. Phone your representatives, send e-mails to the television news.
What, you ask, shall I say in these communications? You ask a question. It might help to have the text of the law handy. The best I have is this pdf so it will have to do.
Ask them what defense an american citizen has against being declared an enemy combatant, and further, what one should do if one is so accused.
Be polite, but be firm. Don't let them bamboozle with what the bill is supposed to do (i.e. "provide legal means to interrogate 'terrorist'") but insist on an answer to the actual question.
If this can be pushed out there, if the Republicans can be shown to be behind this kind of blatant power grab (yes, there were feckless dems who supported it, but apart from Lieberman the only choices are worse, so hold your nose this cycle, and look to findig more Lamonts for the next one. Wars are rarely won in battles, but only after campaigns) they can be put back on their heels.
So long as all three branches of gov't are owned, root, rot, and branch, by the same party (and this incarnation of that party) there is no way to roll back the damages to civil liberties.
We can do other things. We can use good rhetoric. We can ask when we becamae a nation of cowards, willing to sacrifice essential liberties for small (and fleeting) security.
We can proclaim the moral high-ground. We can say that, even if this makes a repeat of That Tuesday more likely, we would rather face that death, than this moral decay. We can say, as the Right is fond of saying, some things are so wrong they can never be countenanced.
I, for one, am willing to risk the minor chance at death (6/1,000, over five years, based on the last successful attack by the "jihadists" this is supposed to be saving me from) to be free.
Patrick Henry said it, and I agree with it, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Shall we sacrifice our honor, our morality; as well as our rights and freedoms, in the vain hope that promises of mere safety are fair value for them?
I fear death less than I am willing to sacrifice human decency, I have more scruples than that.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:01 am (UTC)As I read the bill on its face, the key parts are:
page 4:
20 ‘‘(3) ALIEN.—The term ‘alien’ means a person
21 who is not a citizen of the United States.
page 7
18 ‘‘§ 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
19 ‘‘Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject
20 trial by military commission under this chapter.
pages 7 and 8:
22 ‘‘(a) JURISDICTION.—A military commission under
23 this chapter shall have jurisdiction to try any offense made
24 punishable by this chapter or the law of war when com-
1 mitted by an alien unlawful enemy combatant before, on,
2 or after September 11, 2001.
- - - - - - - - -
It SEEMS, anyway, that so long as one is a U.S. citizen, one cannot be simultaneously be considered an " *alien* unlawful enemy combatant."
And this bill and these commissions only apply to alien unlawful enemy combatants, or lawful enemy combatants.
So you'd have to either renounce your citizenship somehow before you could be an "alien unlawful enemy combatant," or sign on to a formal enemy combat organization, in order to be a "lawful" enemy combatant. Both of these would require previous conscious knowing action on the part of the offender.
What am I missing?
Don't get me wrong--I think this bill is hideous on all its other points. But I'm not sure those raising the spectre of basically benign US Citizens being plunked in a military brig forever on the whim of the Executive Branch are bing totally accurate.
And I don't put it past the NeoCons to pass another bill which closes this loophole. AND, I find it laughable, in a dark macabre sort of way, that this bill blithely refers to "the law of war," when everything we've done re torture and such over the past 5 years is aimed at undercutting that very "law of rule."
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:08 am (UTC)Combine that with this ‘‘(c) DETERMINATION OF UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT STATUS DISPOSITIVE.—A finding, whether before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense that a person is an unlawful enemy combatant is dispositive for purposes of jurisdiction for trial by military commission under this chapter," and I don't see a whole lot protecting citizens on that front, when all is said and done.
Just about the only ray of hope is that the implications of this clause, " no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.’’.
But I'm not so sure that the declaration of "unlawful enemy combatant" (or its mere assertion of possibility, since those awaiting detremination of status have no right to habeas corpus, on any aspect of their treatment, and they can't invoke the Geneva Conventions either) won't trump that.
Jose Padilla was a citizen, and before this law was passed they held him incommunicado for years.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-10-01 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:09 am (UTC)See: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.03930 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.03930:) which also indicates:
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:17 am (UTC)Since the Conventions are a treaty, and treaties are equal in standing to the Constitution, that definition (on which all hinges) is unconstitutional.
But thats asking a lot of the courts, because it's abstruse, and not widely believed, so skirting it has no great fallout, where upholding it might.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:21 am (UTC)I note that Jack Balkin has the same read, of the same text that I'm working from.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 01:33 am (UTC)