Democrats wary of detainee trials compromise (immunity from criminal

[rodeodance]

war crimes not even mentioned in this article--like so many others).

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-09-23T185908Z_01_N21370348_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-GUANTANAMO.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-Politics+NewsNews-2

Democrats wary of detainee trials compromise
Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:59pm ET171
By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats were skeptical on Friday of a deal negotiated by three hold-out Republican senators to rein in President George W. Bush's program to interrogate and try terrorism suspects.
......

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the deal "a substantial improvement" over Bush's plan, but said it still had "a number of problems."

But Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, derided it for using "legal mumbo jumbo to obscure the fact that the CIA will continue to be allowed to use torture and will actually be insulated from legal liability for previous acts of torture."


.......A number of Democrats also object that the deal strips detainees' habeas corpus rights to challenge their detentions.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said excluding habeas corpus rights was unconstitutional and set a hearing on the issue for Monday.

IMMUNITY IS mentioned as an aim in this article (one of only a few):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092200507.html

On Rough Treatment, a Rough Accord

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 23, 2006; Page A06

Draft legislation to create a new system of military courts for terrorism suspects would allow prosecutors to introduce at future trials confessions that were obtained through "cruel, unusual, or inhumane" interrogations by the CIA or the military before 2005, but not afterward.


......The 94-page text is dotted with language crafted not only to support future rough interrogations by the CIA but also to improve the odds of obtaining criminal convictions of detainees and to immunize officials for previous violations of a federal law governing detainee abuse. The bill was introduced by Republican leaders in the Senate yesterday after brief discussions with their House counterparts.

......The bill is complex partly because negotiations were rushed, following a timetable set by President Bush. The White House wants Congress to pass the legislation before adjourning at the end of next week, expecting Democrats to withhold challenges to its most controversial provisions in the pre-election period for fear of being portrayed as soft on terrorism.

But the language is also opaque because its chief objective -- the legitimization of irregular interrogations by the CIA -- is a topic shrouded in official secrecy.

"As you know, specific techniques are classified," White House national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said Thursday evening when he was asked which interrogation techniques the law sanctions. "This whole effort is to get a legal framework supported by the Congress" without letting terrorists know exactly what they will confront after capture, Hadley said. But he added that the draft language meets the CIA's needs.

[Moderator]

1. duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2526195