US Senate approves torture and detention bill

[AdD 1]

Is this the most regressive peice of legislation since Patriot Act 2.0?

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GENEVA – The U.N. torture investigator charged on Friday that a new U.S. law for tough interrogation of terrorism suspects would deprive people of the right to a fair trial before independent courts and could lead to mistreatment.
Manfred Nowak, United Nations special rapporteur on torture, regretted that the bill ignored U.N. rights bodies which have said U.S. interrogation methods and prolonged detentions violate international law.

The Senate gave final approval on Thursday to the bill, a day after its passage by the House of Representatives. President George W. Bush is expected to sign it into law very soon.
'I am afraid that with the new law, the interrogation methods will not really change. Bush has said that harsh interrogation methods will continue and that is my concern,' the Austrian law professor told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The U.N. Committee against Torture and the U.N. Human Rights Committee have found the U.S. interrogation methods are unlawful and expressed concern at arbitrary detentions.

'The bill does not take into account substantive criticism from our side ... It is not the signal that I would have expected the U.S. government and Congress would make in order to try to comply with our recommendations,' Nowak said.

The bill sets standards for interrogating suspects, but with complex rules that rights groups say could allow techniques that border on torture such as sleep deprivation.

Bush got much of what he wanted in the bill to continue the once-secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programme of detention and aggressive interrogations of suspects.

It establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion, but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them.


RIGHT TO FAIR TRIAL

'These people must have a right to fair trial before an independent court which in principle should be an ordinary court. I am particularly concerned that with the bill, the habeas corpus rights are further reduced,' Nowak said.

Habeas corpus refers to a person's right to go before an independent judge who rules on the legality of the detention.

'This is one of the most regressive pieces of legislation in U.S. history,' Reed Brody, legal counsel at the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

A landmark Supreme Court ruling last June struck down Bush's first military commissions to try suspects, leaving the process in limbo. There have been no successful prosecutions since the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001.

The bill expands the definition of 'enemy combatants' mostly held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to include those who provide arms, money and other aid to terrorist groups.

'The Bush administration has been given authority to determine who is an enemy combatant and to lock people up on its own say-so indefinitely without trial,' Brody said.

'We would have thought that after Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons, the administration would have learned mistreatment and torture do not make the country safer against terrorism, but in fact render it more vulnerable,' he added.

The International Commission of Jurists said the law put inmates at Guantanamo and elsewhere 'back in a legal black hole'.

'It is terrible to say the least for the detainees and rule of law in the United States, but also a dangerous precedent because it undermines international human rights law standards,' said Gerald Staberock, head of the ICJ's global security programme.

[urlhttp://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20060929-0727-security-guantanamo-rights.html][/url]

Life is ez
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[Nightingale 0]

I think it's more regressive than the patriot act.

This bill allows suspension of habeas corpus for US CITIZENS!

This is the scariest thing I've read in a long time. It gives the government the power to designate a US citizen as an "enemy combatant" and throw them into some prison and hold them there indefinitely. In other words, it gives our government the power to make people "disappear."

I'm sure people will pop into this thread and say "but our government won't use it that way!" but history demonstrates quite clearly that when a government is given powers, the people in charge use those powers to their advantage. The phrase "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is quite accurate.

[Skyrad 0]

Welcome to the world of the rest of us outside the US of A.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Skyrad 0]

Land of the free

R.I.P

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Andy9o8 0]

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This bill allows suspension of habeas corpus for US CITIZENS!

This is the part of the bill that revolts me the most. Why in God's name would any stable democracy, founded on the rule of law, fear judicial review?

This will go down in the annals of infamy right alongside similar suspensions of habeas corpus during the Civil War and WW1, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2.

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This is the scariest thing I've read in a long time. It gives the government the power to designate a US citizen as an "enemy combatant" and throw them into some prison and hold them there indefinitely. In other words, it gives our government the power to make people "disappear."

Not just the power to do it, but the freedom to do it without the judicial review of habeas corpus. History has not taught these idiots that you cannot save a democracy by destroying the core values upon which it is based.

Oh, by the way, in my professinal opinon, the bill is unconstitutional on its face. But with people like Scalia and Alito, I have little hope that (the current majority of) the Supreme Court will do the right thing when called upon.

[freeflir29 0]

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The bill sets standards for interrogating suspects, but with complex rules that rights groups say could allow techniques that border on torture such as sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is torture? Sooty please!

[Andy9o8 0]

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The bill sets standards for interrogating suspects, but with complex rules that rights groups say could allow techniques that border on torture such as sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is torture? Sooty please!

You're damned right is is.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:gfPeKmNiK84J:news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3376951.stm+torture+%22sleep+deprivation%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&lr=lang_en

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Sleep deprivation is not like torture - it is a form of torture, a tactic favoured by the KGB and the Japanese in PoW camps in World War Two.

"It is such a standard form of torture that basically everybody has used it at one time or another," says Andrew Hogg, of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

See also the numerous other examples in the article by people who were tortured by sleep deprivation. Macho posturing does not make it less so.

[Nightingale 0]

I've met Scalia, and from what he said about the constitution when I talked to him, I'm not sure even he would back this law.

The catch is... the law prohibits judicial review of the detentions. So, if the people in charge of the prisoners follow this law and don't let the prisoners file the petitions in the first place, the supreme court might not ever see one of these cases to decide it. Our courts can only decide the cases presented to them. If the case never gets to court, the court can never decide.

[christelsabine 1]

Sleep deprivation is torture? Sooty please!

[freeflir29 0]

So are we supposed to just give them a shoarma and coke?

[Andy9o8 0]

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I've met Scalia, and from what he said about the constitution when I talked to him, I'm not sure even he would back this law.

The catch is... the law prohibits judicial review of the detentions. So, if the people in charge of the prisoners follow this law and don't let the prisoners file the petitions in the first place, the supreme court might not ever see one of these cases to decide it. Our courts can only decide the cases presented to them. If the case never gets to court, the court can never decide.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about potential Supreme Court review of the merits of an individual's habeas corpus petition per se, I'm talking more about SC review of the core constitutionality of the bill itself. Of course, since the SC doesn't issue advisory opinions, it must come up in the context of a real defendant. In this case, I'd think the triggering event would be a detainee trying to file a habeas corpus petition, then the petition being dismissed on the technical grounds that its very filing is prohibited by the statute, and then those technical grounds being appealed on the basis of the unconstitutionality of the statute.

P.S. - I think you underestimate Scalia's capacity for deliberate intellectual dishonesty.

[warpedskydiver 0]

If Clay gets nabbed by insurgents or any other group in the theater of operations, sleep deprivation will seem like a trip to disneyland, by comparison to what they will do to him.

Is that plain enough for you?

[Andy9o8 0]

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So are we supposed to just give them a shoarma and coke?

Your attempt at diversion by mischaracterizing what I said is hardly a rebuttal.

[warpedskydiver 0]

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So are we supposed to just give them a shoarma and coke?

And then we can all join hands and "sing together"

[Andy9o8 0]

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If Clay gets nabbed by insurgents or any other group in the theater of operations, sleep deprivation will seem like a trip to disneyland, by comparison to what they will do to him.

Is that plain enough for you?

Randall, that misses the point. Just because there is worse torture than sleep deprivation, doesn't mean that sleep deprivation isn't torture.

[Andy9o8 0]

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So are we supposed to just give them a shoarma and coke?

And then we can all join hands and "sing together"

You guys can keep avoiding the point by mischaracterizing it, or you can address it. So far, you're only mischaracterizing it.

[freeflir29 0]

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Your attempt at diversion by mischaracterizing what I said is hardly a rebuttal.

It was no such thing. My point was........if you clowns are going to whine about a tactic so light as sleep deprivation..........What's left? Milk and cookies and a stern talking to?

[christelsabine 1]

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If Clay gets nabbed by insurgents or any other group in the theater of operations, sleep deprivation will seem like a trip to disneyland, by comparison to what they will do to him.

Is that plain enough for you?

Funny. why do you have to reply for him? He's got a sudden writer's block?

OK, coming back to your reply: "They" surely will do to him what "you" will do to "them", right? Or why do you pretend to know it?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[Andy9o8 0]

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Your attempt at diversion by mischaracterizing what I said is hardly a rebuttal.

It was no such thing. My point was........if you clowns are going to whine about a tactic so light as sleep deprivation..........What's left? Milk and cookies and a stern talking to?

<>
I'm not going to explain it to you a 13th time.

P.S. - thanks for the PA. Really elevates the level of discussion.

[freeflir29 0]

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I get the point.........you're saying sleep deprivation is torture and want to end your point there. I don't agree with that and you won't change my mind. Taking a decision like this out of context is rediculous.

[warpedskydiver 0]

I deleted my posts, nobody gives a shit what I have to say anyways.

It's all about what is read in the media, not about what really happens.

[Clownburner 0]

Since this bill authorizes forms of 'interrogation' much more harsh than sleep depravation, that point is academic. But a lot of the reason that sleep depravation is torture has to do with the ways it's done, including forcing people to stand for extremely long periods of time, blasting them with harsh lights and excessively loud noises, etc.

This bill not only authorizes this, but also forms of torture that have been in wide use since the inquisition, such as waterboarding.

But by authorizing the president to declare anyone an enemy combatant based on a vague definition of "providing support and material assistance to terrorists" and then imprisoning them without habeas, judicial review, or even charges, for any period of time, and making that retroactively effective to 1997, it's a lot more regressive than the Patriot act.

This is granting Stalinist powers to a single individual as the head of state. That's EXACTLY the sort of thing the american revolution was fought over. There's a line in the Declaration of Independence that goes "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury" as one of the primary reasons for the Declaration.

This law has NO safeguards against being used against American citizens, and in fact goes so far as to EXPLICITLY permit persons arrested within the United States to be declared "Enemy Combatants" even if they were taken unarmed. They can be barred from even attending their own trials, denied access to the evidence against them, denied the right to speak to council, found guilty, convicted, and punished in secret.

That doesn't sound like what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote "No person be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; Nor... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." That was in 1789.

In passing this law, we join the Hallowed company of countries that allow trial by secret tribunal, including China, Libya, Syria, and most of the more depraved and corrupt dictatorships of Africa and South America.

Overturning this law is inevitable, as even a brain-dead house rat can see that it's blatently unconstitutional. However, as others have pointed out, it has to be done in the context of an actual defendant, which means it will be difficult and could take years. How many people will be dropped into oubliettes in the meantime?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm thoroughly appalled.

7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

[Clownburner 0]

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Oh, by the way, in my professinal opinon, the bill is unconstitutional on its face. But with people like Scalia and Alito, I have little hope that (the current majority of) the Supreme Court will do the right thing when called upon.

I think they will, because the court has always been hostile to legislation that reduces its power - and removing habeas review does exactly that, it leaves the court powerless.

It's just a happy coincidence that it's also the right thing to do in this case.

Ow, that sounded bitter.

7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

[SkyDekker 1,141]

The interesting thing to me is this:

While Americans are blindly signing their life away with the current administration in place, most of the arguing is about a guy who asked a teenager if he is horny. Yes that is despiccable, but in the grand scheme of things, this requires a lot more attention and discussion.

Foley et al has multiple busy threads on this forum. This issue is barely being discussed. pretty sad state of affairs....

[juanesky 0]

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except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; Nor... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." That was in 1789.


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"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

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