What you need to know about the Military Commissions Act

[Jcrowley]

Among other things, the 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.

* 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 discriminatory application of fair trial rights.

* Permit the use in military commission trials of evidence extracted under cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

* Give the military commissions the power to hand down death sentences after trials that did not meet international standards.

* 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.

* Prohibit any person from invoking the Geneva Conventions or their protocols as a source of rights in any action in any US court.

* 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 international law. Amnesty International believes that the USA has routinely failed to respect the human dignity of detainees in the "war on terror".

* 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.

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/stoptorture-060930-features-eng

[tbyg52]

1. Thank you for the summary and the link.

I want all the info I can get about this un-American piece of @#$%.

[mom cat]

2. K&R

[OneBlueSky]

3. but wait . . . there's more . . .

I can't wait to see the signing statement that Bush attaches to THIS one . . .

something like "I hereby reserve the right to do any god-damned thing I want to anyone I don't like . . . so there!" . . .

[mhatrw]

4. Thanks. Nice summary. n/t

[TahitiNut]

5. I can only imagine what Junior's signing statement will add to it.

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Jcrowley]

6. Who's an enemy combatant?

Lindsey Graham told the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, “the administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue fifth column movements…. And let me tell folks who are watching what a fifth column movement is. It is a movement known to every war where American citizens will sympathize with the enemy and collaborate with the enemy. And it’s happened in every war,” never mind that this particular war is undeclared. Naturally, for the neocons, simply opposing the “war” in Iraq and the parallel “war” against terrorism at home is an act of sympathizing with the enemy, that is to say “al-Qaeda,” the black op pseudo gang crafted by the CIA and the Pentagon.

“Graham said U.S. citizens could not be deemed enemy combatants under the bill, but several human rights advocates said the language was so broad that they believed Americans could be detained under it. The Center for Constitutional Rights said even attorneys representing Guantanamo inmates could be deemed enemy combatants,” Reuters continues.