Posted on 09/27/2006 11:15:09 AM PDT by crazyhorse691
W henever anyone notices that the Bush administration is claiming powers of imprisonment, torture and surveillance that people once thought the Constitution was designed to prevent, White House spokesmen put on a solemn face and explain that it's a different world since 9/11.
But from the ballyhooed prisoner "compromise" negotiated with a few rebel Republican senators, the change is actually bigger than that:
It's a different world since 1215.
Not satisfied with cutting up the Constitution, the administration is now mangling the Magna Carta.
The compromise bill takes away from federal courts the right to hear habeas corpus suits from "unlawful enemy combatants" -- such as the 400-plus now held at Guantanamo. In other words, although being held in U.S. custody on U.S. territory, prisoners would have no right to argue in court that there was no reason to hold them.
The idea that the government now doesn't have to justify imprisoning people has been a hard swallow for a lot of people, including the usually accommodating Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Monday he held a committee hearing to express his opposition, and that afternoon complained to the National Press Club about the abandonment of habeas corpus.
". . . (T)hat has been the way traditionally of determining whether the detention is lawful," Specter said. "It's been around for a long time, since the Great Writ (Magna Carta) in 1215.
"And it is emblazoned in the Constitution specifically that it can be suspended only in time of insurrection or invasion -- rebellion or invasion. And we don't have either of those present now."
Of course, the Bush administration still has two years to go.
The administration has a priority of limiting court oversight of its treatment of prisoners because it keeps embarrassingly losing cases. Most recently, the Hamdan case, filed by a Guantanamo prisoner, led to the Supreme Court striking down the proposed rules for military tribunals, on the grounds that the tribunals had no congressional authority and the administration was just making things up as it went along.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles D. Swift, the Navy lawyer who represented Hamdan, explains, "The legislation introduced by the president will see to it that no one else will be able to do what I did."
There's a 1297 edition of the Magna Carta in the National Archives. There's even a replica, printed in gold, right in the middle of the Capitol.
Senators could send an intern down to read it.
"If you're locked up in Guantanamo with access only to military tribunals," says Douglass Cassel, director of the Notre Dame Center for Civil and Human Rights, "it's a very poor substitute for what has been the bulwark of liberty for 800 years."
As always, the details get worse.
The great triumph of the compromise is supposed to be a ban on the use of torture on prisoners -- although the White House says that it, of course, will interpret just where the lines are. But without access to courts, it's not going to be easy to enforce that.
According to Tuesday's Washington Post, the original compromise now has been further compromised, allowing for indefinite detention, without access to courts, of anyone who "has engaged in hostilities or has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States. . . ."
Writes The Post's R. Jeffery Smith, "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."
So, the new compromise not only excludes unlawful combatants from habeas corpus but also considerably expands the people who could qualify as unlawful combatants -- and subject to imprisonment at the pleasure of the president.
In the Magna Carta, the barons of England forced the king to recognize the existence of rights he could not dismiss. They established a principle that has lasted across two continents and eight centuries.
Unfortunately, the people who signed off on this compromise weren't barons.
They were just senators.
David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.
Oh they acknowledge it alright, they are just afraid they and their terrorist buddies will get caught.
Writes The Post's R. Jeffery Smith, "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."
Especially those captured on a battlefield on hostile territory?
Are there court decisions granting foreigners US constitutional rights?
Thanks for speaking up. These "American Patriots" are too busy committing sedition to say anything coherent, much less, resist the urge express their hatred for America and our leaders.
"indefinite detention, without access to courts, of anyone who "has engaged in hostilities or has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States. ."
They are called "POWs".
They never got trials in the past, and shouldn't now.
Pity the Rat fools who believed Hamdan meant that all Gitmo residents were going to get trials. Sorry, only a dozen or so out of 400+.
If the left doesn't like Gitmo, I suggest we just kill all unlawful combatants on the battlefield where it's open season and they are unlawful combatants and not covered by the Geneva Conventions.
Works for me.
Terrorists are neither US Citizens nor members of a law abiding military force. These rights do not apply to them. Anyone with a room temperature intellectual and an basic understanding of International Law knows this.
The problem is ...... without some sort of hearing by someone , the potential for abuse is staggering.
And I think we all know that if something can be abused it will be , and far beyond what can be imagined.
I for one, hope that every terrorist gets a day in court .... right before the exicution.
But that day in court is key, and should be public and open.
Nope. In an accused terrorist's case US Courts are for US Citizens. A POW of an uniformed military force abidiing by the laws of war gets a Military Court. A Terrorists choose to work outside all accepted civilized codes of conduct gets whatever we choose to give them. Under accepted International Law it should be a blind fold and a last cigarette. You are trying to entend the rights of citizens to non citizens. Most of us disagree with that attempted expantion of defenitions.
There are no words to convey the depth of this author's stupidity. Like all of the Left, at best, they are too clever by half.
The Constitution by its terms extends only to citizens, yet cases have extended some of the core unalienable rights to all individuals, regardless of citizenship. This is in nod to the founding fathers who believed there were core rights we all had due to being humans.
Well, the Constitution speaks to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which are certainly "inalienable rights". However, the right to liberty (and often life) is taken away in cases of major criminality, even from US citizens. So why do we have to grant other rights in the Constitution to foreigners who are criminals?
Writes The Post's R. Jeffery Smith, "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."
-----
Is this true?
That the Dems want to continue to treat terrorism as a criminal act and not an act of war shows they still haven't gotten past September 10th. This was Clinton's strategy and it worked so well we got 9/11.
Yea, I have grave concerns about this... If it is infact true, it is just like the WP and MSM to state thigns like that that aren't true.
I'm all for rules being changed for Al Qaeda on the battlefield, but not for domestic US citizens. I trust our government about as far as I can see it, which isn't too far. :)
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