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shaolin_Z
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Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas, USA: TXTA #102
Unhappy The day America died and Dictatorship was born: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)

quote:

The White House Warden

Congress may give the president the power to lock up almost anyone he thinks is a terror threat.


By Bruce Ackerman

BRUCE ACKERMAN is a professor of law and political science at Yale and author of "Before the Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism."

September 28, 2006

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops "during an armed conflict," it also allows him to seize anybody who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison.

Not to worry, say the bill's defenders. The president can't detain somebody who has given money innocently, just those who contributed to terrorists on purpose.

But other provisions of the bill call even this limitation into question. What is worse, if the federal courts support the president's initial detention decision, ordinary Americans would be required to defend themselves before a military tribunal without the constitutional guarantees provided in criminal trials.


Legal residents who aren't citizens are treated even more harshly. The bill entirely cuts off their access to federal habeas corpus, leaving them at the mercy of the president's suspicions.

We are not dealing with hypothetical abuses. The president has already subjected a citizen to military confinement. Consider the case of Jose Padilla. A few months after 9/11, he was seized by the Bush administration as an "enemy combatant" upon his arrival at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. He was wearing civilian clothes and had no weapons. Despite his American citizenship, he was held for more than three years in a military brig, without any chance to challenge his detention before a military or civilian tribunal. After a federal appellate court upheld the president's extraordinary action, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, handing the administration's lawyers a terrible precedent.

The new bill, if passed, would further entrench presidential power. At the very least, it would encourage the Supreme Court to draw an invidious distinction between citizens and legal residents. There are tens of millions of legal immigrants living among us, and the bill encourages the justices to uphold mass detentions without the semblance of judicial review.

But the bill also reinforces the presidential claims, made in the Padilla case, that the commander in chief has the right to designate a U.S. citizen on American soil as an enemy combatant and subject him to military justice. Congress is poised to authorized this presidential overreaching. Under existing constitutional doctrine, this show of explicit congressional support would be a key factor that the Supreme Court would consider in assessing the limits of presidential authority.

This is no time to play politics with our fundamental freedoms. Even without this massive congressional expansion of the class of enemy combatants, it is by no means clear that the present Supreme Court will protect the Bill of Rights. The Korematsu case — upholding the military detention of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II — has never been explicitly overruled. It will be tough for the high court to condemn this notorious decision, especially if passions are inflamed by another terrorist incident. But congressional support of presidential power will make it much easier to extend the Korematsu decision to future mass seizures.

Though it may not feel that way, we are living at a moment of relative calm. It would be tragic if the Republican leadership rammed through an election-year measure that would haunt all of us on the morning after the next terrorist attack.


Source: LA Times

quote:


Friday, September 29th, 2006

“A Total Rollback Of Everything This Country Has Stood For”: Sen. Patrick Leahy Blasts Congressional Approval of Detainee Bill

The Senate has agreed to give President Bush extraordinary power to detain and try prisoners in the so-called war on terror. The legislation strips detainees of the right to challenge their own detention and gives the President the power to detain them indefinitely. The bill also immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for torturing detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. We get reaction from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. [includes rush transcript] On Capitol Hill, the Senate has agreed to give President Bush extraordinary power to detain and try prisoners in the so-called war on terror. The editors of the New York Times described the law as tyrannical. They said its passage marks a low point in American democracy and that it is our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The legislation strips detainees of the right to file habeas corpus petitions to challenge their own detention or treatment. It gives the president the power to indefinitely detain anyone it deems to have provided material support to anti-U.S. hostilities. Secret and coerced evidence could be used to try detainees held in U.S. military prisons. The bill also immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for torturing detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year.

The Senate passed the measure sixty five to thirty four. Twelve Democrats joined the Republican majority. The House passed virtually the same legislation on Wednesday. Legal groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, are already preparing to challenge the constitutionality of the law in court.

* Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. See Senator Leahy’s statement on the detainee bill here.

* Michael Ratner. President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont condemned the legislation from the floor of the Senate.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: It grieves me to think that three decades in this body that I stand here in the Senate, knowing that we’re thinking of doing this. It is so wrong. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. It is designed to ensure the Bush-Cheney administration will never again be embarrassed by a United States Supreme Court decision reviewing its unlawful abuses of power. The Supreme Court said, ‘You abused your power.’ He said, ‘Ha, we’ll fix that. We have a rubber stamp, a rubber stamp, Congress, that will just set that aside and give us power that nobody, no king or anybody else set foot in this land, ever thought of having.’

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy speaking Thursday prior to the vote. He joins us now on the telephone. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Thank you. It’s good to be with you.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us, Senator. Now, if you could explain exactly what this bill that the Senate has just approved with a number of Democrats joining with the Republicans, what exactly it does.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: First off, as you probably gathered from what I was saying on the floor, it’s a terrible bill. It removes as many checks and balances as possible so that any president can basically set the law, determine what laws they’ll follow and what laws they’ll break and not have anybody be able to question them on it.

In this case, the particular section I was speaking about at that point was the so-called habeas protection. Now, habeas corpus was first brought in the Magna Carta in the 1200s. It’s been a tenet of our rights as Americans. And what they're saying is that if you’re an alien, even if you’re in the United States legally, a legal alien, may have been here ten years, fifteen years, twenty years legally, if a determination is made by anybody in the executive that you may be a threat, they can hold you indefinitely, they could put you in Guantanamo, not bring any charges, not allow you to have a lawyer, not allow you to ever question what they’ve done, even in cases, as they now acknowledge, where they have large numbers of people in Guantanamo who are there by mistake, that they put you -- say you’re a college professor who has written on Islam or for whatever reason, and they lock you up. You’re not even allowed to question it. You’re not allowed to have a lawyer, not allowed to say, “Wait a minute, you’ve got the wrong person. Or you’ve got -- the one you’re looking for, their name is spelled similar to mine, but it’s not me.” It makes no difference. You have no recourse whatsoever.

This goes so much against everything we've ever done. Now, we’ve had some on the other side say, ‘Well, they're trying to give rights to terrorists.’ No, we’re just saying that the United States will follow the rules it has before and will protect rights of people. We’re not giving any new rights. We’re just saying that if, for example, if you picked up the wrong person, you at least have a chance to get somebody independent to make that judgment.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Leahy, on this issue of habeas corpus, I want to play a clip from yesterday’s Senate debate and have you respond. This is Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: It was never, ever, ever, ever intended or imagined that during the War of 1812, that it British soldiers were captured burning of the Capitol of the United States, as they did, that they would have been given habeas corpus rights. It was never thought to be. habeas corpus was applied to citizens, really, at that time, and I believe that that’s so plain as to be without dispute.

AMY GOODMAN: Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. Senator Leahy, your response.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Well, I wish it was as plain as he says. Of course, in the Hamdan decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it very clear that it is available in somebody captured. In a case like what he was talking about, if somebody had been captured there and held in prison, and they said, “You have the wrong person,” they could at least raise it. And you also have, of course, under the Constitution, that habeas can be suspended if there is an invasion, if there is an insurrection. We have neither case here. Even the most conservative Republican legal thinkers have said this is not a case to suspend habeas corpus.

You know, they can set up all the straw men they want, but the fact is this allows the Bush administration to act totally arbitrarily with no court or anybody else to raise any questions about it. It allows them to cover up any mistakes they make. And this goes beyond just marking everything “secret,” as they do now. Every mistake they make, they just mark it “secret.” But this is even worse. This means somebody could be locked up for five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. They have the wrong person, and they have no rights to be able to say, “Hey guys, you’ve got the wrong person.” It goes against everything that we’ve done as Americans.

You know, when things like this were done during the Cold War in some of the Iron Curtain countries, I remember all the speeches on the Senate floor, Democrats and Republicans alike saying, “How horrible this is! Thank God we don’t do things like this in America.” I wish they’d go back and listen to some of their speeches at that time.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Leahy, this was not a close vote: 65 to 34. The twelve Democrats who joined with the Republicans, except for Senator Chafee of Rhode Island, the twelve Democrats are Tom Carper of Delaware, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, as well as Senator Menendez of New Jersey, Bill Nelson of Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Senator Pryor of Arkansas, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. They joined with the Republicans. You are working very hard to get a Democratic majority in the Senate in these next elections and in Congress overall. What difference would it make?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: In their defense, all but one of them voted with me when we moved to strike the habeas provisions out. That was the Specter-Leahy amendment, and we had, I think it was, 51-48, I think, was the final vote on that. All but one of the Democrats joined with me on that. If we had gotten three or four more Republicans, we would have at least struck out the habeas provision. There are -- you know, I --

AMY GOODMAN: But they voted for this bill without that, with the habeas provision being stripped out.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I’ll let each one speak for themselves. The fact that the Republicans were virtually lockstep in it, though, should be what I would look at. And maybe we’re blessed in Vermont --

AMY GOODMAN: But that larger question, that larger question of, what would be any different if Democrats were in power?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: For one thing, we would have been asking the questions about what’s been going on for six years. We’ve had a rubberstamp congress that automatically has given the President anything he wants, because nobody’s asked questions. Nobody’s asked the questions that are in the Woodward book that’s coming out this weekend, where you find all the mistakes were made because they will acknowledge no mistakes. The Republicans control both the House and the Senate. They will not call hearings. They won’t try to find out how did Halliburton walk off with billions of dollars in cost overruns in Iraq. Why did the Bush administration refuse to send the body armor our troops needed in Iraq? Why did they send inferior material?

And, of course, the two questions that the Congress would not ask, because the Republicans won’t allow it, is, why did 9/11 happen on George Bush's watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen? And secondly, when they had Osama bin Laden cornered, why didn’t they get him? Had there been an independent congress, one that could ask questions, these questions would have been asked years ago. We’d be much better off. We would have had the answers to that. I think with those answers, we would not have the fiasco we have in Iraq today, we would have caught Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan would be a more stable place, and the world would be safer.

AMY GOODMAN: Was President Bush on Capitol Hill yesterday?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Oh, yes, indeed. You can always tell, because virtually the whole city comes to a screeching halt with the motorcades, although it’s sort of like that when Dick Cheney comes up to give orders to the Republican Caucus. He comes up with a 15 to 25 vehicle caravan. It’s amazing to watch.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was Bush doing yesterday on Capitol Hill?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Oh, he was just telling them they had to vote this way. They had to vote. They couldn’t hand him a defeat. They had to go with him They had to trust him. It’ll get us past the election. We had offered a -- you know, five years ago, I and others had suggested there is a way to have military tribunals for the detainees, where it would meet all our standards and basic international standards. They rejected that. And now, five weeks before the elections, they say, ‘Oh, yes, we need something like that.’ No, basically what he was saying to them, don’t ask questions, get us past the elections, because if you ask questions, the answers are going to be embarrassing, and it could hurt you in the elections.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Leahy, we have to break for one minute. We ask you to stay with us. We’ll also be joined by CCR president, Center for Constitutional Rights president, Michael Ratner.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is president there. Michael Ratner, your response, as we speak with the senator about this groundbreaking legislation?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, I think Senator Leahy really got it right. I mean, what this bill authorizes is really the authority of an authoritarian despot to the president. I mean, what it gives him is the power, as the senator said, to detain any person anywhere in the world, citizen or non-citizen, whether living in the United States or anywhere else. I mean, what kind of authority is that? No checks and balances. Nothing. Now, if you’re a citizen, you still get your right of habeas corpus. If you’re a non-citizen, as the senator pointed out, you’re completely finished. Picked up, legal permanent resident in the United States, detained forever, no writ of habeas corpus.

It was incredibly shocking. I watched that vote yesterday. I had been in Washington for two or three days trying to line up the votes for Senator Leahy’s amendment that would have restored habeas. We thought we had them. We lost at 51 to 48. I have to tell you, Amy, I just -- I basically broke down at that point. I had been working like a dog on this thing. And there I saw the President come to Capitol Hill and persuade two or three or four of the Republicans who we thought we had to vote to strip habeas corpus from this legislation. It was a shock. I mean, an utter shock.

So you have this ability to detain anyone anywhere in the world. You deny them the writ of habeas corpus. And when they're in detention, you have a right to do all kinds of coercive techniques on them: hooding, stripping, anything really the president says goes, short of what he defines as torture. And then, if you are lucky enough to be tried, and I say “lucky enough,” because, for example, the 460 people the Center represents at Guantanamo may never get trials. In fact, only ten have even been charged. Those people, they’ve been stripped of their right to go to court and test their detention by habeas corpus. They’re just -- they’ve been there five years. Right now, under this legislation, they could be there forever.

Let me tell you, this bill will be struck down and struck down badly. But meanwhile, for two more years or whatever it’s going to take us to litigate it, we’re going to be litigating what was a basic right, as the senator said, since the Magna Carta of 1215, the right of any human being to test their detention in court. It’s one of the saddest days I’ve seen. You’ve called it “groundbreaking,” Amy. It’s really Constitution-breaking. It’s Constitution-shattering. It shatters really basic rights that we've had for a very long time.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Leahy, how long have you been a senator?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I’ve been there 32 years. I have to absolutely agree with what I just heard. I mean, this is -- it’s Kafka. But it’s more than that. It’s just a total rollback of everything this country has stood for. I mean, you have 100 people, very privileged, members of the Senate voting this way and with no realization of what it would be like if you were the one who was picked up. Maybe you’re guilty, but quite often, as we’ve seen, purely by accident and then held for years.

You know, I was a prosecutor for eight years. I prosecuted an awful lot of people, sent a lot of people to prison. But I did it arguing that everybody's rights had to be protected, because mistakes are often made. You want to make sure that if you’re prosecuting somebody, you’re prosecuting the right person. Here, they don't care whether mistakes are made or not.

And you have to stand up. I mean, it was a Vermonter -- you go way back in history -- it was a Vermonter who stood up against the Alien and Sedition Act, Matthew Lyon. He was prosecuted on that, put in jail, as a congressman, put in jail. And Vermont showed what they thought of these unconstitutional laws. We in Vermont reelected him, and eventually the laws fell down. There was another Vermonter, Ralph Flanders, who stood up to Joseph McCarthy and his reign of fear and stopped that. I mean, you have to stand. What has happened, here we are, a great powerful good nation, and we’re running scared. We’re willing to set aside all our values and running scared. What an example that is to the rest of the world.

AMY GOODMAN: You gave an example, Senator Leahy, when you talked about what would happen here. And, I mean, even the fact that “habeas corpus” is in Latin, I think, distances people. They don’t quite understand what this is about.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: “Bring the body.”

AMY GOODMAN: You gave a very -- sorry?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: “Bring the body.”

AMY GOODMAN: You gave a very graphic example. You said, “Imagine you’re a law-abiding lawful permanent resident. In your spare time you do charitable fundraising for international relief agencies that lend a hand in disasters.” Take that story from there, the example you used.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: You send money. You don’t care which particular religious group or civic group it is. They’re doing humanitarian work. You send the money. It turns out that one of them is giving money to various Islamic causes that the United States is concerned about. They come to your house. Maybe somebody has called into one of these anonymous tipster lines, saying, “You know, this Amy Goodman. I’m somewhat worried about her, simply because she’s going -- and I think I’ve seen some Muslim-looking people coming to her house.” They come in there, and they say, “We want to talk to you.” They bring you downtown. You’re a legal alien, legal resident here. And you say, “Well, look, I’ve got my rights. I’d like to talk to a lawyer.” They say, “No, no. You don’t have any rights.” “Well, then I’m not going to talk to you.” “Well, then now we’re twice as concerned about you. We’re going to spirit you down to Guantanamo, and we’ll get back to in a few years.” And, I mean, that could actually happen under this. And these are not far-fetched ideas, as the professor knows. He’s seen similar things.

And with that, and I would love to continue this conversation, unfortunately I’ve got to go back to my day job, back to the judiciary. I think this is going to go down as one of those black marks in the Congress. You know, I wasn’t there at the time, but virtually everybody voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution. When I came to the Senate, you couldn’t find anybody there who thought that was a good idea. They knew it was a terrible mistake. You had members of congress supported the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II. Everybody knows that was a terrible mistake now. That day will come when everybody will look at this and say, “What were we thinking?”

AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Leahy, thanks very much for joining us. We only have about 30 seconds. Michael Ratner, president of Center for Constitutional Rights, your final comment on this.

MICHAEL RATNER: This was really, as the senator said, probably the worst piece of legislation I’ve seen in my 40-year career as a lawyer. The idea, and even the example Senator Leahy gave, of someone being picked up, you don’t need anything. The President can decide tomorrow that you, Amy, or me, or particularly a non-citizen, can be picked up, put in jail forever, essentially, and if you're a non-citizen in Guantanamo or anywhere else in the world, you never get a chance to go to court to test your detention. It’s an incredible thing, and any senator who voted for this, in my view, is essentially guilty, guilty, guilty of undermining basic fundamental rights and may well be guilty of war crimes, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, thanks very much for joining us, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.


Source: Democracy Now

quote:

A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

By Mike Whitney

Al-Jazeerah, October 1, 2006

When Hillary Clinton said that her husband Bill was the target of “a vast right-wing conspiracy”, her critics just laughed at her. No one is laughing now.

Next week, President Bush will sign the “Military Commissions Act of 2006” into law. The new legislation will repeal the central tenets of the U.S. Constitution which require the state to charge a man with a crime before putting him in jail, as well as the 8th amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and inhuman” punishment. The law will allow Bush to imprison anyone he chooses and abuse them as he sees fit. It places Bush above the law, our first American monarch.

The march towards tyranny has been calculated and relentless. Hillary was right; it is a conspiracy. Prominent right-wing organizations have worked tirelessly to push the country toward authoritarian government and they are very close to succeeding. The alphabet soup of conservative think tanks and foundations have strategically aligned themselves with the major players in the corporate, media and banking establishments and removed most of the obstacles to absolute power. The Military Commissions Act just adds the final touches by eliminating habeas corpus.

The new law is designed to deprive terror suspects of internationally-recognized human rights. It tip-toes around the Geneva Conventions and permits Bush to use his own judgment as to the precise meaning of “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment. It reinforces Bush’s interpretation of “enemy combatant” which now includes anyone who “has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States”. By this definition, Bush is free to imprison American citizens who may merely disagree with his analysis of the war on terror. For example, Bush recently attacked his critics for reiterating the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which states that the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists. The document draws the obvious conclusion that Iraq has become a “recruiting sergeant” for violent jihad. Bush lashed out at his detractors saying that they had “selectively quoted” the NIE and were “buying into the enemy’s propaganda”. The question is: Can a citizen be arrested for “materially supporting hostilities against the United States” by professing belief in the conclusions of the NIE if the president says that it is “propaganda”?

Can that be construed as “aiding the enemy”?

Bruce Ackerman clarifies this point in an article in this week’s LA Times. He says the new legislation “authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And, once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any of the other normal protections of the Bill of Rights.”

Bush’s sweeping new powers have been carefully withheld from public scrutiny. In fact, in the nearly 800 articles which appeared on Google News, not one of them indicated in their headline that the new law repeals habeas corpus (although many articles on liberal web sites refer to habeas to the title) The vast majority of mainstream articles appear under the rubric of “Detainee Treatment Laws” which is deliberately misleading and intended to minimize the grave effect the law will have on our constitutional form of government. Again, the media has shown itself to be a steadfast ally to its friends in power and an enemy to basic principles of democracy.

The new bill also allows secret or coerced evidence to be used in military tribunals against terror suspects and provides legal immunity for military and CIA agents who engaged in torture before the end of 2005. (Despite the fact that retroactive law has no legal foundation)

The Military Commissions Act is the culmination of 6 years of vigorous attacks on the Bill of Rights. From the very beginning, administration attorneys have set about to dismantle the basic protections which limit presidential power. This has resulted in a long list of systematic violations to international law including secret detentions, disappearances, torture, humiliating treatment, indefinite detention without charge, and criminal rendition. All of these activities are transparently illegal and beyond any conventional sense of human decency.

The pattern is unmistakable; the administration is contemptuous of our laws and will not respect any restrictions on the power of the executive. All of this is preparation for the New World Order and the end of American democracy.

The far-right fanatics in the administration correctly focussed on habeas corpus as the cornerstone of the American judicial system. If the president has the statutory authority to incarcerate citizens or non-citizens without filing charges the rest of the Bill of Rights is irrelevant. This is the primary lever of tyrannical rule and it explains why Bush has tried to undo habeas since the arrest of Jose Padilla (American citizen) in May, 2002. The government kept Padilla in a military brig for 3 and a half years without charging him with a crime in an obvious attempt to savage habeas and allow the president to decide who is entitled to “inalienable rights” and who is not. Under the new legislation, “inalienable rights” will be reduced to "provisional gifts" from the president which can be arbitrarily rescinded by executive edict.

When Bush signs The Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, America, as we know it, will cease to exist. The fundamental safeguards of due process, judicial review and the presumption of innocence will no longer be guaranteed. The heart-and-soul of the constitution will be eviscerated leaving us exposed to the erratic and aggressive behavior of the state. Traditionally, the state has always been the greatest threat to personal liberty. We expect that same rule will apply here as well.


Source: Al-Jazeera

I know I've posted some of this stuff in other threads, but someone had to start this one. I didn't think I'd live to see this day, or at least this soon. Things are just moving so fast. God help us.


___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

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Hei Hu Quan



Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas, USA: TXTA #102

quote:

Vermont Congress candidate calls on Pentagon to arrest Bush, Cheney


Saturday, September 23— Former U.S. Army Lieutenant and candidate for Congress in Vermont, Dennis Morrisseau, today called for the arrest of President Bush and Vice President Cheney by the American military "if necessary" to prevent an unauthorized attack upon the nation of Iran.

The antiwar Vietnam vet is a Republican, but he has won approval from the State of Vermont to run on the ballot line “Impeach Bush Now,” rather than Democrat or Republican.

"American forces are apparently already active inside Iran, and Naval forces have received orders to deploy to that country," Morrisseau said. "The President has NO AUTHORITY to attack the nation of Iran whatsoever, in the absence of a full, formal Declaration of War on Iran by the sitting Congress."

Morrisseau said any order for an attack upon Iran or to deploy naval forces to its coastal waters is illegal, and called upon officers of the American military to "First, refuse to obey such an order. If the president persists and insists on ordering our forces into combat in or over Iran without a formal Declaration of War, then I call upon you, General Pace, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and upon such other military officers as clearly see their duty in these circumstances to detain both the President and Vice President, until such time as the Congress shall act."
Letter to General Pace of the Joint Chiefs

Morrisseau, who was court-martialled for opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968, said he has written to General Pace to ask for the intervention of the military. "In spite of my opposition to the Vietnam War and the court-martial which we ultimately defeated, I was a good soldier who had the respect of my superior officers throughout the ordeal. And they had mine!" Morrisseau said. "There are many many, very, very decent people in the active duty military. I know this," he said " people who love their country and democracy too, and hate war."

Morrisseau wrote that "Iran is no present threat to us or anyone. Their right to enrich uranium under treaties signed by us for the production of nuclear power is clear: and that is all they have so far done. An attack upon that nation now by us, acting alone will constitute an illegal war of aggression under international law. It is illegal under our law as well. I urge you to so advise the President," Morrisseau wrote to Pace, "and urge that he take no such actions. In particular, he must not act in the absense of a full, formal, responsible War Declaration by Congress. That is the Constitutional requirement."

If he and Cheney persist, Morrisseau wrote, "than the country must rely upon you, Sir, and our armed forces generally, to resist all illegal orders by Bush or Cheney, and take the gentlemen into custody if necessary."
October Surprise

Morrissaeu's website notes that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders for a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast.

This information follows a report in the current issue of Time, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1st.

As Time writes in its cover story "What Would War Look Like?" evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed—but until now largely theoretical—prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."

According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received recent orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21st.
Anti Vietnam War Veteran

Second Lieutenant Dennis Morrisseau was arrested and court-martialled as an Army 2nd lieutenant for repeatedly speaking out in uniform against the Vietnam War, then refusing shipment to South East Asia. His legal team defeated the court-martial and he was allowed to resign his commission in early 1968. The court-martial charges called for 5 years in prison at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
Statement by Morrisseau

I'm an old war horse and a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont who believes we must impeach Bush and Cheney, and we must remove the neoconservative cabal from power.

Our great nation has suffered a coup.

And there is an immediate need for action and for the piercing of illusions. We need to step across old political boundaries and ideas. Who cares about "Democrats" vs. "Republicans"? The leadership of both parties is thoroughly corrupt. And that "leadership" exercises its power through control of Congress, not the presidency.

Presidents are figureheads and presidential elections are "bread and circuses." In our American system, Congress rules because Congress makes the laws and Congress writes the checks that fund all government activity.

Our leaders are very happy to have us believe otherwise.

But no president can govern at all without the full cooperation of Congress.

The 109th Congress and its leaders of both parties are fully complicit in all actions taken so far by the Bush administration, no matter what they say for public consumption. Their true loyalty is to their fellow senators and representatives and their corporate backers and not to us.

Morrisseau campaign website—

http://www.2LTMorrisseau.com


Source


___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Old Post Oct-02-2006 00:55  United States
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shaolin_Z
Hei Hu Quan



Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas, USA: TXTA #102

I any of you have read the Bill, or find anything relevant, please post it here.


___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Old Post Oct-02-2006 01:00  United States
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Sunsnail
Global Moderator



Registered: Sep 2004
Location:

Wow, I didn't think it'd come this early. I was shooting for another decade or so.

Old Post Oct-02-2006 01:04 
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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism



Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
Wow, I didn't think it'd come this early. I was shooting for another decade or so.

wtf? you didn't know the President has always been able to imprison people indefinately during wartime. we've seriously gone above and beyond and out of our way to try these turds one way or another.


whats with the acrimony now? it's like Habeas Corpus just up and went? no.

Old Post Oct-02-2006 01:21  United States
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shaolin_Z
Hei Hu Quan



Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas, USA: TXTA #102

quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
wtf? you didn't know the President has always been able to imprison people indefinately during wartime. we've seriously gone above and beyond and out of our way to try these turds one way or another.


whats with the acrimony now? it's like Habeas Corpus just up and went? no.


I'm not surprised by your response at all. You'd take a bullet for the very people who would kill/torture/enslave you, and the rest of us. You're hopeless.


___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Old Post Oct-02-2006 01:33  United States
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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism



Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
You're hopeless.

you're being spun.

Old Post Oct-02-2006 01:34  United States
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shaolin_Z
Hei Hu Quan



Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas, USA: TXTA #102

quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
you're being spun.


Oh my, you have no idea how badly I wish that was true.


___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Old Post Oct-02-2006 01:58  United States
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shaolin_Z
Hei Hu Quan



Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Austin, Texas, USA: TXTA #102

quote:

Detainee Treatment Bill Goes to White House Following Senate Approval

The Senate has agreed to give President Bush extraordinary power to detain and try prisoners in the so-called war on terror. The legislation strips detainees of the right to file habeas corpus petitions to challenge their own detention or treatment. It gives the president the power to indefinitely detain anyone it deems to have provided material support to anti-U.S. hostilities. Secret and coerced evidence could be used to try detainees held in U.S. military prisons. The bill also immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for torturing detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. The Senate passed the measure sixty five to thirty four. Twelve Democrats joined the Republican majority. The House passed virtually the same legislation on Wednesday. Legal groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, are already preparing to challenge the constitutionality of the law in court.

House Re-Writes Wiretap Laws for Bush Spy Program

In other news from Capitol Hill, the House has voted to re-write the country’s domestic wiretap laws to accommodate the Bush administration’s warrantless spying. The bill would change current law requiring a court order for the monitoring of incoming or outgoing communications in the United States. Court orders would be required only if a phone call or e-mail occurred within the US. Critics say that will lead to increased surveillance of citizens without court approval. A competing bill awaits a Senate vote.


Source: Democracy Now


___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Old Post Oct-02-2006 02:41  United States
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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism



Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Oh my, you have no idea how badly I wish that was true.

ok, well, when you find something in the new law that specifies that American citizens can be classified as "enemy combatants" and can be restricted from what they've always enjoyed Habeas Corpus to be, then consider yourself un-spun.

Old Post Oct-02-2006 02:45  United States
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Q5echo
asymetrical scepticism



Registered: Feb 2004
Location: Dallas

quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Source: Democracy Now


sh*t, theres the problem right there! you're listening to a bunch of communists

kidding...but not really

Old Post Oct-02-2006 02:53  United States
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DJ Shibby
Amphoteric Superbase



Registered: Jul 2004
Location: Of Earthzen and the Therethen

quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
wtf? you didn't know the President has always been able to imprison people indefinately during wartime. we've seriously gone above and beyond and out of our way to try these turds one way or another.


whats with the acrimony now? it's like Habeas Corpus just up and went? no.


Define wartime?

Was the cold war "wartime"? All the way until 1990?

Is the drug war "wartime"? From 39 to 06 and beyond?

Is a "war on terrorism" considered wartime?

Or is that why we're KEEPING troops in iraq? To prolong the *real* wartime?

Old Post Oct-02-2006 03:02  United States
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TranceAddict Forums > Other > Political Discussion / Debate > The day America died and Dictatorship was born: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)
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