The entire Congress should be fired, they want to protect the terrorists, at the expense of the lives of potentially thousands of innocent Americans.
EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS -- THE ACTUAL TEXT, GIVING THE TERRORIST DETAINEES FULL RIGHTS AND PROTECTION OF THE US CONSTITUTION ANYWHERE, EVEN OUTSIDE THE US AND CREATING US LAW BASED ON THE UN.
THIS IS WHAT THE US CONGRESS IS MAKING LAW:
(a) In General.--"No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
(b) Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose any geographical limitation on the applicability of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under this section.
(c) Limitation on Supersedure.--The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this section.
(d) Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Defined.--In this section, the term ``cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment'' means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984. "
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Here is the link to the Senate vote, you can go from there via the link on that page to the actual text, but for some reason, when I put in the direct link to the text it gives me an error.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00249
Assuming this crap passes both houses, can't the President just stick it in a drawer and not sign it?
The unintended consequence of this law is that we're going to stop taking the senior leadership alive. Pretty much every single mid level leader we take knows that all he has to do is shut up and say 'I'm not telling you anything', because all we can do is ask them questions for a few hours a day. Consequently, we don't get much out of those guys. It was only the really high ups that were in any danger of rendition, and it was for them that the gloves came off.
No terrorist leader afforded the full protection of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is ever, ever going to break in interrogation. It won't happen. This means that there's no real incentive for us to catch these guys alive. Capturing them is considerably more difficult than killing them, and the risk to do so is now no longer worth the effort.
That is unfortunate, because we're going to lose what little HUMINT we had. As gratifying as it can be to see terrorists wake up to a 500lb alarm clock, it's always with a sense of loss. You can't help but wonder what attacks they were planning, and you find yourself wishing that we had taken them alive to find out what they knew. Now, every interrogator will be in terror of being personally prosecuted under this extremely subjective law, and won't so much as raise his voice to any detainee we have. Our HUMINT collection is about to slow to a quiet trickle.
This all so subjective..
What is torture? Naked Twister???
What is degrading? If I say that I do not like you?
It is really crazy to write a bill such as this.
I disagree with McCain's bill because of its absolutism, but I blame the administration for not taking the lead in the argument about torture and interrogation. By adbicating that responsibility and by playing stupid semantic games, they all but invited this reaction.
As distastful as it sounds, I now understand why Rome went from a republic to an Empire.
This needs to be the first veto from Pres. Bush. It's for our children.
If the terrorists will agree not to use cruel killing techniques, then this would be Queen's rules war.
Jerks.
The Bad Guys do not play by "The Rules."
This is the lesson that everybody should have taken away from Vietnam.
Is anybody in Washington listening?
The President has said we don't condone or use torture, the Vice-President has said we don't condone or use torture, the Secretary of State has said we don't condone or use torture. This is just applying what they said. Isn't it?
Another article with more detail, read it and weep.
House vote backs McCain language on torture
A clear message to the administration that Congress supports the legislation
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/15/MNGADG892M1.DTL
Rep. Walter Jones Jr., R-N.C., was among the many conservative Republicans who voted for Murtha's motion. He said in an interview that experts have told lawmakers that harsh interrogation methods often produce misleading or false misinformation because the detainee "will tell you what he thinks you want to hear" to end the pain.
Jones said he believed extreme interrogation tactics resulted in some of the bad intelligence that led the administration to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the invasion.
McCain's language is stalling the Defense Authorization bill, a policy-setting measure, as the White House continues to negotiate for exceptions and legal protection for interrogators who might unwittingly cross the proposed new lines
Despite McCain's unwavering stance, the White House continues to push for some level of exemption for officials working in the U.S. intelligence services and most specifically the CIA. Sources familiar with the negotiations said Wednesday that McCain and Hadley's one-on-one meetings over the past month had centered on the White House's request for some level of legal protection from liability for CIA operatives should they be found in violation of the standards.
Such an exception would allow interrogators to use a defense that a "reasonable person" would not have thought their actions were illegal, similar to military laws about following orders.
I'm proud to say my Congressman Vito Fossella 13th NY, Staten Island voted No!
God bless you Vito!
Mark Levin had the best speech on this matter yesterday. He said that every slip and fall lawyer is drooling over the prospect of suing interrogators. Can't these people, who represent us, realize the effect of this will be bigger than any Gorelick Wall? Have they asked Americans?
The interrogators are human. If they have to watch how far they can go and question their every move we are in trouble. OBL must be laughing his A$$ off.