Associated Press:
Congress sent President Bush a bill Friday that endorses his plan to interrogate and prosecute terror suspects, legislation Republicans hope will win them political points on the campaign trail.
Once Bush signs it, which he was expected to do very soon, the military can begin prosecuting terror suspects.
Many Democrats opposed the legislation because they said it eliminated rights of defendants considered fundanamental to American values, such as a person's ability to protest court detention and the use of coerced tesimony as evidence.
This bill is a pig. It's probably the worst piece of legislation to get to the President's desk in my lifetime -- I say 'probably', because this bill shows that no abuse of liberty is beyond the current Congress. The New York Times compare it to the Alien and Sedition Act. We now allow the President -- a big fan of torture -- to define what constitutes torture. We've taken the right of Habeus Corpus away from anyone the administration calls a terrorist. If you've done nothing wrong, you can be imprisoned and you'll have no opportunity to plead your innocence. The President can imprison anyone, without presenting evidence, for as long as he likes.
In his statement in opposition to the bill, Sen. Russ Feingold told the Senate, "Some have suggested that terrorists who take up arms against this country should not be allowed to challenge their detention in court. But that argument is circular – the writ of habeas allows those who might be mistakenly detained to challenge their detention in court, before a neutral decision-maker. The alternative is to allow people to be detained indefinitely with no ability to argue that they are not, in fact, enemy combatants. Unless any of my colleagues can say with absolute certainty that everyone detained as an enemy combatant was correctly detained – and there is ample evidence to suggest that is not the case – then we should make sure that people can’t simply be locked up forever, without court review, based on someone slapping a 'terrorist' label on them."
"There is another reason why we must not deprive detainees of habeas corpus," he continued, "And that is the fact that the American system of government is supposed to set an example for the world, as a beacon of democracy. And this provision will only serve to harm others’ perception of our system of government." Turn off the beacon and blow out the candle in the window -- we've given up our leadership role in the world.
The New York Times lists some of the many flaws in this legislation...
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Tags: news politics republican congress senate constitution law torture human rights civil rights crime terrorism morons
