(no subject)
"The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume." --Thomas Jefferson to A. H. Rowan, 1798.
It's times like these that make me wish I could change the world. I was away from the internet and a computer for two days, and the country got tossed on its head. I found out today that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was signed into law by President Bush a couple of days ago. I had fully hoped that somewhere along the process of lawmaking it would fail. I had hoped that somewhere SOMEONE in power would be able to see the madness that this act is, and stop it. Unfortunately we had no such luck.
With the signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the laws of habeus corpus are now officially void. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 suspends them. Ironically on the EXACT same day, to the day, of the 135th anniversary of President Grant suspending habeus corpus in order to effectively quell the KKK, and ensure voting rights to Americans (most notably African-Americans).
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 grants the President the power to deny anyone arrested by US authorities their rights of habeus corpus if the President, or a Combatant Status Review Tribunal decides to declare you an enemy combatant. Now according to the law the reasons for which you can be declared an enemy combatant are entirely up to the whims of the President or the Tribunal (members of which are appointed by the President). But one of the reasons, it specifically states is if you even give material support to an organization that the President or the Tribunal deems is somehow connected to an enemy organization, you too can be declared an enemy combatant and be held for any length of time without the right to a trial, jury, phone call, lawyer, or even being told why it is that you are being held.
This is especially troubling in a country where with the President's newfound powers he can order the CIA to perform torture, or as the laws call it "physical harm", "up to, but not exceeding, organ failure, or death". So now anyone can, at any time, be arrested, held without any rights if the President so desires, and be subject to torture. The CIA has even recently admitted that it is using WATERBOARDING. Waterboarding is an offense that the US prosecuted as a war crime in the aftermath of WWII. In the same report that unearthed the CIA and NSA's use of waterboarding they admitted that it was such an extreme form of interrigation that even their highly trained special forces (SEALS, Rangers, Delta Force), begged to confess within 14 seconds. Holy God. What has our country become?
Do you know what the worst part about this, to me, is, though? No one cares. America has turned its collective attention away from politics and the raping of their rights in recent years. It has come to the point that when the most significant infringement of their "inalienable" rights in history is upon them they don't realize or care. America is sliding very quickly towards tyrrany.
It's times like these that make me wish I could change the world. I was away from the internet and a computer for two days, and the country got tossed on its head. I found out today that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was signed into law by President Bush a couple of days ago. I had fully hoped that somewhere along the process of lawmaking it would fail. I had hoped that somewhere SOMEONE in power would be able to see the madness that this act is, and stop it. Unfortunately we had no such luck.
With the signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the laws of habeus corpus are now officially void. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 suspends them. Ironically on the EXACT same day, to the day, of the 135th anniversary of President Grant suspending habeus corpus in order to effectively quell the KKK, and ensure voting rights to Americans (most notably African-Americans).
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 grants the President the power to deny anyone arrested by US authorities their rights of habeus corpus if the President, or a Combatant Status Review Tribunal decides to declare you an enemy combatant. Now according to the law the reasons for which you can be declared an enemy combatant are entirely up to the whims of the President or the Tribunal (members of which are appointed by the President). But one of the reasons, it specifically states is if you even give material support to an organization that the President or the Tribunal deems is somehow connected to an enemy organization, you too can be declared an enemy combatant and be held for any length of time without the right to a trial, jury, phone call, lawyer, or even being told why it is that you are being held.
This is especially troubling in a country where with the President's newfound powers he can order the CIA to perform torture, or as the laws call it "physical harm", "up to, but not exceeding, organ failure, or death". So now anyone can, at any time, be arrested, held without any rights if the President so desires, and be subject to torture. The CIA has even recently admitted that it is using WATERBOARDING. Waterboarding is an offense that the US prosecuted as a war crime in the aftermath of WWII. In the same report that unearthed the CIA and NSA's use of waterboarding they admitted that it was such an extreme form of interrigation that even their highly trained special forces (SEALS, Rangers, Delta Force), begged to confess within 14 seconds. Holy God. What has our country become?
Do you know what the worst part about this, to me, is, though? No one cares. America has turned its collective attention away from politics and the raping of their rights in recent years. It has come to the point that when the most significant infringement of their "inalienable" rights in history is upon them they don't realize or care. America is sliding very quickly towards tyrrany.