Okay, found it -

[kyburg]

The whole issue of habeas corpus going on in the media?

Constitution calls this out quite clearly in section 9:

"The Priviledge of Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Uh. Neither of those two states exist right now, do they?

Yeah. They can pass this retainee bill all they like - can you say "straight to the Supreme Court to be knocked down on consitutional basis?"

Knew you could.

So. What you end up with is a clear message that one of our political parties is far more interested in doing What They're Told than paying attention to the rule of law - oh, and the interests of the people who pay them, and elected them.

Right before an election. Good one, team. You go right ahead.

Comments

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Neither of those two states exist right now, do they?

Data point: Rabid anti-immigrant conservatives do indeed we are in a state of Invasion.

(They're mad, of course, but still.)

What you end up with is a clear message that one of our political parties is far more interested in doing What They're Told than paying attention to the rule of law...

We're not surprised, are we?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Minor point that if there are al-Queda cells in the US (and the Shrub will say that, rest assured), then we ARE un a case of Invasion.

Oh, that and they'll just say that nobody who challenges it has any standing to do so.

Right on the latter

[turandot.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the legislation silences those who might have standing in it (i.e., those who are detained for "national security" reasons). The law is basically an end run around Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. It's a bad piece of legislation that's probably gonna cause everyone headaches, no matter how you look at it.

Re: Right on the latter

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Oh, there amazing numbers of headaches with it. I think it's a horrible piece of legislation.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Except for one teensy bit of issue - if that was the case, they could have invoked section 9 and been done with it already. Who needs a bill?

[turandot.livejournal.com]

That's not the style of this administration.

Point blank, this legislation will have nothing to do with detaining people in the U.S. Anybody and everybody that the law targets will probably end up in a CIA shadow facility somewhere overseas, and have no access to a lawyer so to demand that their rights as a citizen be respected. If they are ever released, they're not gonna be able to sue the government for redress on any treatment received by invoking the Geneva Convention. After all, BushCo had already interpreted the Geneva Convention as not covering said detainee.

As the politicians who oppose this bill suggested, this law seeks nothing less than to dismantle rights that even the Magna Charta (i.e., the basis for most anglo-saxon law) allowed citizens. So does this administration.

Correction, but the message remains the same

[turandot.livejournal.com]

Upon some reading, it seems the legislation targets non-citizens. So yeah, the american public can sleep safe about not being disappeared. Unless they say something bad that shows up on wiretaps, whose scope will probably be expanded before the end of the current administration (I almost said regime, btw). In which case the CIA will disappear undesirable citizens the old fashioned way, whatever that might entail.

At a time where other countries see the U.S. as a 900 lbs gorilla who just destroys everything in its path unapologetically, this is the perfect statement to make. Not "remember, we're the good guys here", rather "fuck you! we can use of brutal force, and nobody can say shit." This law is almost criminal under the Geneva Convention: possibly indefinite detention, possible torture, and no recourse left for those who are imprisoned to regain their freedom or to advocate humane treatment for themselves and their fellow detainees. When exactly did it become kosher to adopt China's stance on human rights?

Think of this: if a U.S. citizen (at some point after the passage of this bill) becomes imprisoned in a foreign country known to torture its detainees without access to any due process, what moral and legal standing does our country, in an attempt to secure release, bring at that table? After all, it can be argued, we could and would do the same with theirs. Illegal detentions of this type occur more often than we think, many of them not as well publicized as the journalist in Darfur who was arrested and detained for "being a U.S. spy".

Moreover, there are plenty of terrorists out there (i.e., those we spurred into action by our illegal actions overseas) who can and will demostrate how little value they place of any human life. Setting our bar at the same level will do nothing to dissuade them in their quest. They will be able to tell their recruits: "See, they really are the devil, like I told you!"

It doesn't really matter if SCOTUS eventually stomps on this stupid law until it dies the death of all stupid laws. The damage to this country's credibility as a champion for all that is good in the world will basically be done in with its passage, and its crown achievement is nothing less than making Americans overseas as vulnerable to detention and torture as foreign nationals would be in our country.

[(Anonymous)]

Errr...you don't seriously think that the Shrub cares about such things. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of "what they'll say"

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Whoops..that was me :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

I have a theory that most lawmakers don't actually read the legislation they vote for. They just get an aid to tell them if the legislation is 'good' or
'bad' for them. The aids probably haven't read the legislation, either.

To remidy this, I propose that any lawmaker proposing a bill or voting for it must be able to recite the entire text of it from memory.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

You're of course assuming that the Supreme Court will Do the Right Thing. I hope they will, but...

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

You forget who packed the bench lately.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

NO, that's exactly my point. Even a bunch of moderately conservative judges would drop this bill in the circular file where it belongs. But are Scalia, Roberts, etc. going to. Well, we can hope...

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Since Scalia gave the Republican seat Tom DeLay botched up so badly that a Democrat -any Democrat- is going to get it, I'm more than a little confident that at least at the top - there's still some decency left in the process.

[foogod.livejournal.com]

The problem is, as has been pointed out by others here, that this and all the other similar bills along these lines all deal with non-US citizens. As long as they don't deal with US citizens, Section 9 of the Constitution does not apply, thus the Supreme Court probably can't have much of a say in the matter even if they wanted to.

It's all legal. That's the really bad part.