Each day that passes the fundamental contradictions of our society and its political institutions becomes more profound and fundamentally disturbing.
I recall a wise saying of one of our greatest American heroes, Benjamin Franklin;
"Those who will sacrifice liberty in order to gain freedom deserve neither".
Yet, we find ourselves at a point in our history where we are ready to put one of our most fundamental freedoms on the chopping block. The recent sanctioning of The Military Commission Act by Congress will effectively terminate our rights of Habeas Corpus.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus, which demands that just cause be shown for the imprisoning of our country's citizens, is fundamental to the execution of our larger Bill of Rights.
Without this pivotal right, all other rights are thrown into jeopardy and left practically powerless.
So while far right pundits, such as Sean Hannity, begin each radio broadcast with stirring renditions of "Let Freedom Ring!" and other patriotic melodies, those very liberties which define the goodness and uniqueness of this country are being sweep aside by our "patriotic" GOP lead Congress and Administration.
Like many other things, once these rights are taken away, they are typically hard to get back.
Many people have died to gain and preserve these rights.
Why are we so complacent about giving these precious rights up?
In order to slay the monster of unjust totalitarianism, we must not become kin to the monster ourselves. If we do so, we ourselves, by our own actions, become accessories to the implementation of the evil plans and aspirations of men such as Bin Laden and others whom destroy freedom.
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The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is a bill (Number S.3930) awaiting the President's signature, having passed the Senate, 65-34, and the House, 250-170-12. Among its provisions, the bill supports the formerly secret CIA interrogation program and suspends the writ of habeas corpus for detainees. An amendment by Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) preserving habeas corpus was rejected by a vote of 51-48. Specter voted for the bill despite the defeat of his amendment. The bill was finally passed by the house on September 29 2006 and presented to the President for signing on October 10 2006.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/S-3930_passed.pdf
For all you left wing nuts....the FBI/CIA isnt interested in you. You are all boring and irrelevent. Get over yourselves and try to understand that there is a serious enemy to america using your kook beliefs against this country.
except that i'm not upset about the article and don't agree with the conclusions. yes, i think we are in real trouble all around the world, real trouble with this administration. i'm just hoping bush will lay low for the next two years and not make the headbanging decisions that he's made in the past.
he recently said that he could go with a new strategy if his generals suggest something? well, his generals are wiser than the people crafting military policy so i hope he does listen to them.
but i don't wanna hear that the democrats have no strategy in iraq. neither do the republicans. stay the course, lol. what does that mean.
By the time Spector and SCOTUS get through with this issue, US citizenship won't be worth anything, and foreign combatants trying to kill our citizens will receive all of the legal protections that US citizens receive.
Can you say "Left-wing nut job"... I thought so...
Seriously though I just wish we could actually discuss ideas. I dont think the left wing ideas are evil I just think that they arent good for America. Why cant they just stand behind their Ideas? I think they have come to the realisation that most Americans think thir ideas are riduculous and that would explain the angry judgmentalism. Then again who am I?
I'm what you'd call a purist (except for those of you who won't consider other opinions -- Hello, I'm a left wing nut, blah, blah, blah) . I believe in the Constitution, and the rights afforded us by it. I find it ironic, and sad that many supporters of the abuses of this administration fail to recognize that thousands of our citizens have died in defense of the US Constitution and protection of our civil liberties. The Bush administration and the Republican Party are hypocrites with no conscience, with their constant mantra of Islamic extremists "hate us for our freedom and democracy," while they overthrow the foundation of our own democracy, in the battle to provide democracy to others. Our freedom and democracy are in peril without habeas corpus, as it makes one party rule much easier.
We can no longer boast of "freedom and democracy" while our leaders destroy habeas corpus and practice torture. For any of you blind enough to think that this cannot affect you, wake up. The FBI and CIA may not want you, but if they do, and there is any question as to treasonous acts, good luck. Democrats and other moderates know there are legitimate times to suspend habeas corpus, and it's been done in our recent past.
Take a Constitution 101 class at your local community college, go online and do some research; or better yet, read the constitution. I only wish our President had read it; and that our Republican led congress and weak Democrats (who went along) had remembered it.
And as far as the left wing being "a tool for everything against this country" isn't it ironic that we are the only ones discussing the true meaning and impact of what in all likelihood will be the downfall of this administration; oh, but wait, Bush made sure he gave himself immunity from prosecution...what a guy!
My concern, and that of others who opposed this heinous act recognize the great loss to our stature. Without the protections of habeas corpus, and many of the other features of the Military Commissions Act, America will no longer be known as the land of freedom, liberty and democracy. We have lost our moral ground and the one legitimate reason Bush has ever used for the invasion of Iraq...bringing "freedom, liberty and democracy" to a central part of the Middle East.
The Military Commissions Act is the most dangerous legislation in living memory. It takes away the Magna Carta's habeas corpus guarantees. It ends enforcement of the Geneva Conventions. It legalizes torture. It wrecks our legal system by creating a system of trials that makes a mockery of all modern standards of justice. It gives the President of the United States carte blanche to throw people in prison without any explanation, much less any criminal charge. Any citizen can be declared an enemy combatant, so don't fool yourself into thinking it's only targeting foreign terrorists.
Here's a partial list of what the Military Commissions Act does:
Revokes habeas corpus
Ends enforcement of the Geneva Conventions
Legalizes torture
Gives the President the power to imprison anyone he wants, without need for explanation, if the President declares the imprisoned person to be an "enemy"
Ends the right to a speedy trial, allowing imprisonment without criminal charges for long periods of time - potentially for a lifetime
Sets up show trials that allow conviction to happen before an investigation into the alleged criminal activity has even begun
Allows the government to use secret evidence to convict defendants, which not even the defendants' lawyers can see.
Legalizes the use of testimony that was obtained through torture or other means of coercion - much as occurred at the Salem Witch Trials to force people to testify that their neighbors were witches
Keeps the processes of trials, the results of the trials, and even the existence of the trials, secret from the American public
Allows defendants and their lawyers to be prevented from cross examining witnesses, while placing no such restriction on the prosecution
Ends the enforcement of the 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination
Gives anyone suspected of war crimes, including President Bush himself, immunity from prosecution
********************************************
And here is brief excerpt and link to a great piece regarding this travesty:
"...Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham were presented with an opportunity to uphold the fundamental human right known as habeas corpus, or flinch and write a law that would retroactively make sure that George W. Bush could not be prosecuted for violations of habeas corpus in our overseas concentration camps and prisons. It was a contest between protecting the President and protecting the Constitution.
The Republican senators flinched, and in last week's so-called "compromise" chose Bush over the Constitution. In doing so, they turned their backs on a rule of law that stretches back over nearly eight centuries to an epic moment in 1215 on a meadow by the River Thames in the United Kingdom....
Two of the most critical parts of the Magna Carta were articles 38 and 39, which established the foundation for what is now known as "habeas corpus" laws (literally, "produce the body" from the Latin - meaning, broadly, "let this person go free or else give him a trial - you may not hold him forever with charging him with a crime"). The concept of habeas corpus in the Magna Carta led directly to the Fourth through Eighth Amendments of our Constitution, and hundreds of other federal and state due process provisions.
Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta said:
"38 In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
"39 No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."
...in 1627, King Charles I overstepped, and the people snapped. Charles I threw into jail five knights in a tax disagreement, and the knights sued the King, asserting their habeas corpus right to be free or on bail unless convicted of a crime.
King Charles I, in response, invoked his right to simply imprison anybody he wanted (other than the rich feudal lords), anytime he wanted, as he said, "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis."
This is essentially the same argument that George W. Bush makes today for why he has the right to detain people without charges for as much as their entire lives solely on his own say-so: because he's in charge....
(Bush) isn't even bothering with the civilized step...of asking Congress for a temporary suspension of habeas corpus for a particular situation. Instead, he's demanding that his Republican colleagues give him the sole power to do away with habeas corpus altogether...
It's a virtual repeat of Charles I's doctrine that a nation's ruler may do whatever he wants because he's the one in charge - "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis." ...
Article I of the Constitution outlines the powers and limits of the Legislative Branch of government (Article 2 lays out the Executive Branch, and Article 3 defines the Judicial Branch). In Section 9, Clause 2 of Article I, the Constitution says of the Legislative branch's authority: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Abraham Lincoln was well aware of this during the Civil War, and was the first president to successfully ask Congress (on March 3, 1863) to suspend habeas corpus so he could imprison those he considered a threat until the war was over. Congress invoked this power again during Reconstruction when President Grant requested The Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to put down a rebellion in South Carolina.
But there is no "Rebellion or Invasion" going on in America right now.
Nonetheless, our President has locked people up, "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis." Some of their names are familiar to us - US citizens Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, for example - but there are over ten thousand whose names we are not even allowed to know. It's a state secret, after all. Per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis.
The question these tragic Republican senators, ultimately, propose to decide is whether our nation will continue to stand for the values upon which it was founded. And they have chosen timidity and convenience - to trash habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions and the US War Crimes Act - instead of fulfilling their oaths of office to "defend the Constitution of the United States of America."
President Thomas Jefferson rebuked those who wanted America ruled by an iron-handed presidency that could throw people in jail without constitutional due process.
"I know, indeed," Jefferson said in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, "that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. ...
"I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern."
The sum of this, Jefferson said, was found in "freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0925-35.htm
Can you say Reich-wing lockstepper?
With all due respect, what part of this (to you, probably rude comment didn't you get) sorry to use someone else's words but it is the truth.
For all you left wing nuts....the FBI/CIA isnt interested in you. You are all boring and irrelevent. Get over yourselves and try to understand that there is a serious enemy to america using your kook beliefs against this country...
I too am really tired of all the liberals riding this Habeas Corpus thing like it in itself is going to tear down the walls of Democracy in the U.S. "IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU" Are you a terrorist, do you want to destroy the U.S. do you commit treason on a daily basis, do you want to kill your president (No that's not a trick question). Do you want another 9/11... If you answered no to these questions then shut up...It's not about you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>>>
Right. Some people in Congress who voted for this bill said they 'knew it was unconstitutional, and would be reversed,' so no big deal. Anyone who votes for politicians who supported this bill is voting in their (own) interest, too? Sure, it's OK, for whom?
"Those who will sacrifice liberty in order to gain freedom deserve neither".
If emulating Benjamin Frankiln makes me a Lefty, so be it.
Just as you fools that emulate your Supreme Leader Bush makes you a Reich-winger, you should just stand up, be counted, and proud. But for you to hide behind Patriotism for the United States or it's flag is just a dishonest sham. For you don't stand for what this country was founded on, you stand for something else entirely.
Peace
We don't have that much in common then. Can you applaud my quotes from the people that actually made the US what it is. These where people that did something greater than any American since. Can you come up with a single quote that would back up your point of view toward the emasculation of the Bill Of Rights? You act as if your a bright fellow. You say your tired of hearing the "same ol'" quotes from these great men. Funny, I never do. These are the people that gave us the gift and greatness of this country. It's folks like you and your President that would reverse that greatness and allow what only we as a nation can do, to turn our backs on the lessons and uniqueness of this great land.
You state it is the terrorist's that are our enemy, and you are correct. But it is folks like you and your misguided President that are a much greater threat than these piss-ant terrorist's ever could be. THEY can't take away our freedoms. THEY can't alter our Constitution, nor our Bill of Rights. You and your ilk are trying to do just that. So if there is an imminent danger to our country, to our Union, it is you and your President. It is you and your President that is the biggest threat this country has had to face in 230 years. For only the people of this nation can give up what was given us so many years ago.
You state that it the divisions of this country that helps the likes of Bin Laden, and that we, (the "lefties"), that should just throw up our hands and give in to the likes of you and your President. Well brother, I'm here to state that it is you and your President that should side with our Constitution, our Bill of Rights. All of them, not just the ones that are convenient. The great men and women that founded this country didn't abandon them out of convenience. So no, we won't side with you. We side with those people that made this country great. So in reality, it is you and your President that are facilitating the terrorist's by dividing this country.
We need to stand for what our Union, our United States was founded upon. Not some bastardized version that your President now declares we should. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, et-al wouldn't have pissed on George W. Bush if he was on fire. I have no doubt they would have called him a traitor to what this country was founded on.
So no, I ask you to come back to what this Grand Ol' United States stands for. Follow the real leaders of this country that you claim to love. And when you hear a quote from one of them, or even when you hear any reference to these great men, hold it in reverence, not disdain as you appear to do.
Peace
Our founders had European nations at their door ready to exploit America. But they chose courage instead of fear. They saw beyond the immeadiate peril and enacted laws to define who a people were. That took guts. Bush swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. He didn't swear one to uphold big buildings in NYC or oil profits or tax cuts. He and that list of infamy, the Republican Congress, are the slimeist cowards that ever disgraced the flag. Think those men who died on Bunker Hill or Yorktown sacrificed so we can torture prisioners? Think those immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and Germany, men that fled governments who could imprision at will marched into the Confederate guns at Fredricksburg for GITMO or Abu Graib? How about those guys gassed in The Rainbow Division or shot up on Omaha Beach or along the Yalu River or Mekong Delta? Think these guys swore and oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and gave the "last full measure" so we could allow a government to spit on our history and rights?
No it NOT about terrorists. Our nation is GREATER than ANY threat against it. That greatness is defined by our Constituional rights. Those who seek to subvert those rights are enemies of America. America is either at its undoing or its rebirth. We either will allow the erosion of fundemental principals for temporary threat or we will recoil from the brink and reinstate the rule of law and punish the cowards who take our freedoms. It's in the ballot box.
Rolling back the New Deal and the Bill of Rights has not been enough for the lords of misrule. They have taken aim at the Magna Charta.The time to hold them to account is now.
First off, he's not my president, I didn't vote for the asshole anymore than you did, so I wish you would get off of the me and my, you and yours, shit. You obviously haven't read my comments very closely. I am not for this administration, I just happen to disagree with you, and the basic premise of this post.
Time to wake up, people. The fact is, there is absolutely NO reason for Bush to be doing this. He already had all the tools that he needed, in order to capture and bring "terrorists" to justice legally.
Finally, ask yourselves one question, and try to find some way to answer it honestly. I realize how difficult honesty is for some, but try. Will you be so nonchalant and disregarding about this law when President Hillary is wielding this power?
JBS News Feed
Federal Government Appeals Ruling on Warrantless Surveillance Program
By Gary Benoit
Published: 2006-10-16
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court to throw out a lower court ruling that the NSA's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional.
Follow this link to the source article: "Government argues to uphold warrantless surveillance program"
COMMENTARY:
The Justice Department on October 13 asked the federal appeals court in Cincinnati to overturn a lower court decision that the National Security Administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program is unconstitutional. The appeals court had earlier agreed that the administration could continue the program while it is being appealed — a process that could take months.
But this is not the only front that the Bush administration has been aggressively pursuing to make the warrantless eavesdropping program permanent. Though the administration had implemented the program in secret based on claimed executive authority, it has been seeking congressional approval. But that approval, even if granted, would not change the program's obvious unconstitutionality. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution clearly states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…."
Despite this constitutional protection, the House passed its version of the NSA warrantless surveillance bill in late September, but the Senate equivalent of the bill did not make it to the floor for a vote prior to the pre-election adjournment. However, there is a good chance the Congress will take up this issue once again during the lame-duck session after the elections.
Though passage of the bill would not make the NSA program constitutional, the Bush administration would jump at the opportunity to make a law authorizing the NSA program a part of its legal case.
Americans who value the Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures" are encouraged to contact their senators in opposition to the NSA warrantless surveillance eavesdropping bill. To send an online letter to your senators, click here.
http://www.capwiz.com/jbs/issues/alert/?alertid=9090566
GaryBenoit.jpg
Gary Benoit
Gary is the Editor of The New American magazine
JBS Link
This man who lied to America to force this war, this man who maintains a policy in a deepening spiral of failure, listens to no counsel but hand-picked radicals and governs by ideology instead of reality cedes to himself powers not held by any President since our founding.
Popular support for him and his adventures is dwindling to nothing. What if he could maintain the level of fear? How do you define aid and comfort to the enemy? If he could radicalize America via some military confrontation and we posted criticisms which our "enemies" find comfort are we breaking his law? Could you honestly say the man who conducts political rallies only when participants swear loyalty oaths would hesitate to crush dissent if it could be in his grasp?
We have taken a dark road. Our generation of Americans has shown it possible what no previous generation dared imagine: The Constitution of the United States could be violated by our elected representatives.
Gary, I'm addressing the envelope as I write this.
Todd, remember, without safeguards, people like Ben Franklin knew that one man's version of freedom of speech or activity could be concieved of as other man's version of criminal activity.
So if a charismatic leader steps up (and charisma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder), and promises from his position on high that the wrong he is doing is in my best interest, I'm liable to go for it, since I had no real interest in the tradition of "greatness" in the first place. Wouldn't I?
Very few of us realized that the founders of this nation stood up against a system of government that some of their forefathers died to empower. Some of them had relatives, loyal to The Crown Of England still overseas. Yet they dared not only to disagree, but to become disagreeable. These men, and women, stood, and fell in the pursuit of some of the loftiest principles noble men and women ever conceived. And it is a sin against their sacrifice to simply "believe."
God knows that in order to feel like a real American, one must know the difference between a man who is free by law backed by the will of God, and We The People, and a man who is dependent upon the arbitrary whim of some popinjay, blow hard, or bonified devil, or one of his whores, who slicked his (or her) way into office as our servant, only to turn around and enslave us by tampering with that law... even if it is a little bit at a time.
Unfortunately there still exists poor delude people who have not entered into that realm of cognizance as of yet. So if they looked in the mirror, dressed the red coated prejudice of gullibility, they would still see red, white, and blue, and that blind evaluation of themselves will continue to define for them what is and what is not loyalty... unless a brighter light illumines their vision. And that most likely will not happen on FOX.
Patriotism is not a feeling. It is a way of life. These flag wavers who get emotional don't have a clue. You, Abu, are a thinking man. Therein lies the difference.
We KNOW that innocent people have been denied due process and have been detained in Gitmo and abroad in secret prisons. There is a very real danger here expecially when most of the detained have been prosecuted by foreign powers who have sold their prisoners to our government. What this means is that foreign powers can use our foreign policy to make people they don't like disappear which would be simple enough considering that enemy combatants do not get to see teh evidence against them.
Todd, so the basis of your argument is that the Bush Administration is not after left wing nuts? Bravo! Your argument for the justification of the removal of Habeus Corpus the very first constitutional freedom ever granted is absolutely ingenius. You will change many minds with your logic I'm sure.
First off, I don't appreicate your sarcasm, or attempt to downplay any part of my patriotism. If you paid half as much attention to the truth as you do to all the rhetoric your side of the arguement spouts you would know.
For the millionth time, This bill does not have "ANYTHING" what so ever to do with the civilian crimmal justice system, it is being put in place for specifically Military Tribunals, that deal strictly with military combatants, and detainees under UCMJ, as far as your claim that you KNOW innocent people have been denied due process, you don't know anything of the sort, you assume because of what you have been told. Name me one civilian that has been "Plucked" out of their safe secure bedroom, hauled off to a concentration camp and been denied their rights, because they said "Bush was a peice of shit", or condemmed anything concerning this administration. Here, let me help the cause "Bush your a peice of shit, your administration sucks, and someone should kick your ass !!!!....Gee, I bet I'm still here on Gather next year!!!!
This is from democracynow.org This man is one of the innocent people we KNOW about.
"Five years ago this month, car bombings in Saudi Arabia killed two British nationals and wounded two others. Most of the targeted were working as foreign engineers in the country. The bombings set off another nightmare for several of their colleagues, who were accused by the Saudi government of carrying out the attacks.
One of them was William Sampson. Sampson, a Canadian citizen, was working as a consultant in the Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical industry. Within weeks of the bombings, he was imprisoned along with seven others and placed in solitary confinement.
Sampson remained in jail for over two and a half years, where he says he was tortured, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Medical tests subsequently backed up his claims.
In February 2001, after weeks of torture, Sampson appeared on Saudi Arabian television and confessed to the bombings. He later claimed he had endured torture so painful in prior weeks he had begged his captors to let him confess.
The televised confession elicited a world-wide campaign to secure his release. Sampson's case was taken up by the Association In Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted, and championed by prominent advocates such as the late attorney Johnnie Cochran and wrongfully imprisoned former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Under mounting international pressure, the Saudi government granted him clemency. In August 2003, Sampson and five others were set free."
Under mounting international pressure, the Saudi government granted him clemency. In August 2003, Sampson and five others were set free." Key words here, Saudi government, not the U.S. But let me save you the trouble, I'm sure you going to respond with something to the effect of...."The U.S. backed Saudi Gov't right. Really, regardless, we can point/counterpoint until the frigggin cows come home, let's just hope your Democrats do a better job starting in"06" &"08". Wow, never thought you'd hear me say that did ya. I might be confrontational and opinionated but I ain't stupid. I know who's gonna win, and if they don't, well that speaks for itself...I guess time will tell which of us is/was right !
As for the Democrats winning... One can only hope. However, I'm not ready to call them MY Democrats. It's not like their my Los Angeles Kings or my LA Lakers where I love them even when they do poorly.