Crawl Across the Ocean

Thursday, September 28, 2006

A Sad Day

Glenn Greenwald has the details:

"There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness and abuses of power on the one hand, and, on the other, having the American people, through their Congress, endorse, embrace and legalize that behavior out in the open, with barely a peep of real protest. Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining powers of tyranny -- one of the very powers this country was founded in order to prevent."


...

"we are now about to vest in the President the power to order anyone -- U.S. citizen, resident alien or foreign national -- detained indefinitely in a military prison regardless of where they are -- U.S. soil or outside of the country. American detainees are cut off from any meaningful judicial review and everyone else is cut off completely. They can be subject to torture with no recourse, and all of this happens on the unchecked say-so of the administration. Really, what could be more significant than this?"

posted by Declan at Thursday, September 28, 2006

3 Comments:

  • The name escapes me...what do they call a form of government that takes this kind of authority over its people again? The one that's really antionalistic and very corporate friendly?

    Starts with an F I think...

    By Blogger Mike, at 8:13 AM  

  • I think the word you're looking for is "Family-Friendly"

    OK, that's two words, but they both start with F.

    By Blogger Declan, at 3:30 PM  

  • From the NY Times:

    "Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted."

    With regard to citizens, see here:

    "The problem with 948a(1) is that it may place Congress's stamp of approval on a definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" that is far too broad and that allows the government to move a wide swath of citizens outside of the normal procedural protections of the criminal justice system and into a parallel system where the Bill of Rights does not apply."

    But even if your two points were valid, so what? It's just torture of non-American citizens so no big deal?

    By Blogger Declan, at 6:28 PM  

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