Reply to: habeas corpus

[Cowboy Bob]

Speaking of which, are the PCG still on your case Bob?

No, that's all sorted. To be fair, the PCG themselves were never really on my case. It was more a case of a few morons who happened to be members of the PCG being on my case.

[darmstadt]

Maaaaaaaaate, take a reality pill or stop smoking the happy stuff for fecks sake

What are you worried about? Making some naughty comments about GW on some insignificant website no one of importance visits? But if you really want to see how silly your comment is just look at all the loons who criticise GW in public...IF anyone was going to go missing then you are a long way down the list behind those morons

Mailman

Couldn't happen

[wendigo100]

I don't feel like being "disappeared" because I've been critical of Dubya somewhere on some Internet forum...

Speaking of which, are the PCG still on your case Bob?

[Mailman]

I personally am not worried about anything, I was being facetious. However, I will still not fly to/through the US on principle.

Please use the internationally recognised signs of [facetious] and [/facetious] in future!

Mailman

[expat]

The United States will preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests

So they might put a stop to Galileo, the european GPS?

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz sent a letter to all 15 European Union defense ministers ... urging them to influence their governments not to proceed with Galileo.
...
Wolfowitz's rationale, according to Gantelet and published reports, was that the United States Defense Department, which funds and operates GPS, plans to upgrade the system's capabilities and use more frequencies for signals. The European system, Wolfowitz reportedly cautioned, could interfere with that.

-- Wired.com

[Cowboy Bob]

Maaaaaaaaate, take a reality pill or stop smoking the happy stuff for fecks sake

What are you worried about? Making some naughty comments about GW on some insignificant website no one of importance visits? But if you really want to see how silly your comment is just look at all the loons who criticise GW in public...IF anyone was going to go missing then you are a long way down the list behind those morons

Mailman

I personally am not worried about anything, I was being facetious. However, I will still not fly to/through the US on principle.

People are being disappeared though - up to 2000 by February 2002. Less than 6 months after 9/11. I wonder how many have gone now...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle204971.ece

(Full article re-printed here if you don't have a log-in - http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0226-08.htm)

[Mailman]

I don't feel like being "disappeared" because I've been critical of Dubya somewhere on some Internet forum...

Maaaaaaaaate, take a reality pill or stop smoking the happy stuff for fecks sake

What are you worried about? Making some naughty comments about GW on some insignificant website no one of importance visits? But if you really want to see how silly your comment is just look at all the loons who criticise GW in public...IF anyone was going to go missing then you are a long way down the list behind those morons

Mailman

[Cowboy Bob]

I last visited the US before 9/11. The advent of fingerprinting for people entering or even just passing through made me think twice about ever going again. Now, with this new law, I'm definitely never going again and if flying somewhere requiring a stop-over, I'll make sure my plane stops over in Mexico instaed of LAX. I don't feel like being "disappeared" because I've been critical of Dubya somewhere on some Internet forum...

[Mailman]

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

Stop being a fecken drama queen, you queen!

The act is a direct result of advice issued by the Supreme Court.

So you see, justice has worked!

Mailman

[AlfredJPruffock]

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

[Gonzo]

In addition despite the wording of the Declaration of Independence ie

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—

However, Blacks were excluded from certain areas during the sixties, but if all men are created equal why were Blacks excluded from certain areas?

I believe that the original wording referred to "all free men" thereby excluding slaves, traditions which took a long time to shake off in the south.

Disclaimer - most of my knowledge of US politics comes from watching The West Wing.

[DimPrawn]

Among other things, the Military Commissions Act will:

• Strip the US courts of jurisdiction to hear or consider habeas corpus appeals challenging the lawfulness or conditions of detention of anyone held in US custody as an "enemy combatant". Judicial review of cases would be severely limited. The law would apply retroactively, and thus could result in more than 200 pending appeals filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees being thrown out of court.
• Prohibit any person from invoking the Geneva Conventions or their protocols as a source of rights in any action in any US court.
• Permit the executive to convene military commissions to try "alien unlawful enemy combatants", as determined by the executive under a dangerously broad definition, in trials that would provide foreign nationals so labeled with a lower standard of justice than US citizens accused of the same crimes. This would violate the prohibition on the discriminatoryapplication of fair trial rights.
• Permit civilians captured far from any battlefield to be tried by military commission rather than civilian courts, contradicting international standards and case law.
• Establish military commissions whose impartiality, independence and competence would be in doubt, due to the overarching role that the executive, primarily the Secretary of Defense, would play in their procedures and in the appointments of military judges and military officers to sit on the commissions.
• Permit, in violation of international law, the use of evidence extracted under cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or as a result of "outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating or degrading treatment", as defined under international law.
• Permit the use of classified evidence against a defendant, without the defendant necessarily being able effectively to challenge the "sources, methods or activities" by which the government acquired the evidence. This is of particular concern in light of the high level of secrecy and resort to national security arguments employed by the administration in the "war on terror", which have been widely criticized, including by the UN Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee. Amnesty International is concerned that the administration appears on occasion to have resorted to classification to prevent independent scrutiny of human rights violations.
• Give the military commissions the power to hand down death sentences, in contravention of international standards which only permit capital punishment after trials affording "all possible safeguards to ensure a fair trial". The clemency authority would be the President. President Bush has led a pattern of official public commentary on the presumed guilt of the detainees, and has overseen a system that has systematically denied the rights of detainees.
• Limit the right of charged detainees to be represented by counsel of their choosing.
• Fail to provide any guarantee that trials will be conducted within a reasonable time.
• Permit the executive to determine who is an "enemy combatant" under any "competent tribunal" established by the executive, and endorse the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), the wholly inadequate administrative procedure that has been employed in Guantánamo to review individual detentions.
• Narrow the scope of the War Crimes Act by not expressly criminalizing acts that constitute "outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatment" banned under Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions. Amnesty International believes that the USA has routinely failed to respect the human dignity of detainees in the "war on terror".
• Prohibit the US courts from using "foreign or international law" to inform their decisions in relation to the War Crimes Act. The President has the authority to "interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions". Under President Bush, the USA has shown a selective disregard for the Geneva Conventions and the absolute prohibition of torture or other ill-treatment.
• Endorse the administration’s "war paradigm" – under which the USA has selectively applied the laws of war and rejected international human rights law. The legislation would backdate the "war on terror" to before the 11 September 2001 in order to be able to try individuals in front of military commissions for "war crimes" committed before that date.

Sounds fair enough to me. Shoot the feckers.

[darmstadt]

That ain't the only one either, you can also get done way up there

[darmstadt]

Among other things, the Military Commissions Act will:

• Strip the US courts of jurisdiction to hear or consider habeas corpus appeals challenging the lawfulness or conditions of detention of anyone held in US custody as an "enemy combatant". Judicial review of cases would be severely limited. The law would apply retroactively, and thus could result in more than 200 pending appeals filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees being thrown out of court.
• Prohibit any person from invoking the Geneva Conventions or their protocols as a source of rights in any action in any US court.
• Permit the executive to convene military commissions to try "alien unlawful enemy combatants", as determined by the executive under a dangerously broad definition, in trials that would provide foreign nationals so labeled with a lower standard of justice than US citizens accused of the same crimes. This would violate the prohibition on the discriminatoryapplication of fair trial rights.
• Permit civilians captured far from any battlefield to be tried by military commission rather than civilian courts, contradicting international standards and case law.
• Establish military commissions whose impartiality, independence and competence would be in doubt, due to the overarching role that the executive, primarily the Secretary of Defense, would play in their procedures and in the appointments of military judges and military officers to sit on the commissions.
• Permit, in violation of international law, the use of evidence extracted under cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or as a result of "outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating or degrading treatment", as defined under international law.
• Permit the use of classified evidence against a defendant, without the defendant necessarily being able effectively to challenge the "sources, methods or activities" by which the government acquired the evidence. This is of particular concern in light of the high level of secrecy and resort to national security arguments employed by the administration in the "war on terror", which have been widely criticized, including by the UN Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee. Amnesty International is concerned that the administration appears on occasion to have resorted to classification to prevent independent scrutiny of human rights violations.
• Give the military commissions the power to hand down death sentences, in contravention of international standards which only permit capital punishment after trials affording "all possible safeguards to ensure a fair trial". The clemency authority would be the President. President Bush has led a pattern of official public commentary on the presumed guilt of the detainees, and has overseen a system that has systematically denied the rights of detainees.
• Limit the right of charged detainees to be represented by counsel of their choosing.
• Fail to provide any guarantee that trials will be conducted within a reasonable time.
• Permit the executive to determine who is an "enemy combatant" under any "competent tribunal" established by the executive, and endorse the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), the wholly inadequate administrative procedure that has been employed in Guantánamo to review individual detentions.
• Narrow the scope of the War Crimes Act by not expressly criminalizing acts that constitute "outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatment" banned under Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions. Amnesty International believes that the USA has routinely failed to respect the human dignity of detainees in the "war on terror".
• Prohibit the US courts from using "foreign or international law" to inform their decisions in relation to the War Crimes Act. The President has the authority to "interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions". Under President Bush, the USA has shown a selective disregard for the Geneva Conventions and the absolute prohibition of torture or other ill-treatment.
• Endorse the administration’s "war paradigm" – under which the USA has selectively applied the laws of war and rejected international human rights law. The legislation would backdate the "war on terror" to before the 11 September 2001 in order to be able to try individuals in front of military commissions for "war crimes" committed before that date.

[zathras]

In declaring that Guantanamo detainees who are not citizens of the USA no longer have the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the Bush administration has turned this ancient principle, bedrock of liberty in all common law societies, and core of Article 1 of the US Constitution, from a human right into a citizen's privilege.

I can not think of a harder blow to the idea that the US Constitution is a beacon of liberty to the world (if indeed there are still any Americans who think that).

The US has always been a land of contridictions; after all this is the country which enshrines free speech in it's constitution an still went through the Communist Witch hunts under Senator McCarthy.

In addition despite the wording of the Declaration of Independence ie

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—

However, Blacks were excluded from certain areas during the sixties, but if all men are created equal why were Blacks excluded from certain areas?

The writ of Habeus Corpus is however is not actually an absolute right under the US Constitution and it can be suspended when public safety is requires it; see http://www.constitutionfacts.com/con...nstitution.htm for details.

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.