Posted on 04/18/2010 7:09:37 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would allow the President to imprison an unlimited number of American citizens (as well as foreigners) indefinitely without trial. Known as The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, or S. 3081, the bill authorizes the President to deny a detainee a trial by jury simply by designating that person an “enemy belligerent.”
The bill, which has eight cosponsors, explicitly names U.S. citizens as among those who can be detained indefinitely without trial:
An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent ... may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities. [Emphasis added.]
Note that the Bush administration once said that the so-called “war on terror” would last a generation or more, and the U.S. military has officially classified many former Guantanamo detainees, such as England's Tipton Three, as having “returned to the battlefield” for merely granting an interview for the movie The Road to Guantanamo. Another five innocent Uighur (Ethnic Turkish Muslims from China) detainees had been listed as having “returned to the battlefield” after their release because their lawyer had written an op-ed protesting their prolonged detention without trial after they had been mistakenly picked up by a greedy bounty hunter. Writing an opinion or speaking an opinion against the party in power in Washington can — and already has — made some people “enemy belligerents.”
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that “No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” and the Sixth Amendment stipulates the due process of law that all are required to receive:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
The requirement for a jury trial has no exceptions for military reasons, and doesn't even exempt foreigners. It simply employs the phrase “all criminal prosecutions,” words that unequivocally apply to the military and civilian justice systems, as well as to both citizens and foreigners. The Founding Fathers truly applied Christ's command to “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you,” but John McCain's new bill wouldn't even do to American citizens what we would assume were basic rights. There is no greater tyranny than indefinite imprisonment at the whim of an executive without legal recourse, and that is precisely what McCain and eight other senators would impose upon America.
McCain defended his bill in a speech on the Senate floor March 4, stating:
The legislation would authorize detention of enemy belligerents without criminal charges for the duration of the hostilities consistent with standards under the law of war which have been recognized by the Supreme Court. Importantly, if a decision is made to hold a criminal trial after the necessary intelligence information is obtained, the bill mandates trial by military commission where we are best able to protect U.S. national security interests, including sensitive classified sources and methods, as well as the place and the people involved in the trial itself.
In other words, the right to trial by jury guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution would no longer be a right. The bill would mandate “military commissions” rather than a jury trial, if and when the President deems to hold a “trial.” Under McCain's legislation, trial by jury wouldn't just be a privilege that the President could withdraw at a whim, the President would be required to deny jury trials. The right to trial by jury would be denied entirely! Of course, any American could be held for decades without trial or even being charged with a crime under McCain's bill.
Cosponsors of the bill include Democrat/independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Republicans Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, David Vitter of Louisiana, George LeMieux of Florida, and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Those cosponsoring this outright attack on the Bill of Rights are those same Republican neo-conservatives who have dominated the GOP for the last decade or more. Conservative constitutionalists need to reassert control of the Republican Party and purge this cancer from the party and the U.S. Senate, if they wish to retain their freedoms.
“Yeah, what a terrible character attribute loyalty is.”
Placing personal loyalty above the interests of your country and loyalty to the Constitution is not a positive character attribute.
Response: If true this is one more bit of evidence that the clowns now in office are afraid. We have scared them!
bttt
And your point is?
Or maybe you have no point, other than to shoot the messenger because you don't like the message; as I've been graduated for quite some time already, I financed my education using loans, and I do have a pending job offer with a pretty good compensation package.
Oh, and by the way, you never did tell exit82 what you thought of the McCain bill. Perhaps THOMAS.LOC.gov is a "really stupid source" too, as is anything you disagree with.
Well I am really glad McCain introduced this legislation.
We can use it as a campaign issue to defeat this senile idiot.
It doesn't say much for your intelligence, nor advance your creds in any way that you do that kind of thing. There is no howl from other highly rated conservative journalists such as Michelle Malkin, American Thinker and others, not even the slightest hint that this is something real or to be concerned about.
That tells me your source (and likely you) is a crock. Most rational conservatives on FR understand that.
And it's backed up by official, authoritative sources.
Yet you continue to stall and dance around saying what you think of the bill.
IMO, you're either a coward or you support the bill.
The actual source though happens to be ...
The source sucks.
Sorry Lakeshark. The kid is right and you are wrong.
I was very skeptical, so I went on the U.S. Senate website from first principles (not a series of links provided by the Birchers) and found the legislation and it is exactly as presented. Our so-called “conservatives” are stabbing us in the back trying to force Obama and Holder to try foreign terrorists as military prisoners.
Senator McCain does not refer to it among his recent bills proposed, but it is out there, just the same and just a little hard to find.
Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, and the rest ought to be burning up McCain’s phone line complaining about this. I voted for McCain in November, 2008, and now am ashamed of having done so. The man obviously has no regard for the Bill of Rights.
Find it yourself, read it, consider it in the context of our times, and stop defending the indefensible.
I did mean what I said in my post 138 to you.
I would like to know what you think of this proposed legislation.
Many on this thread have given their take on it—what is yours?
Thought you might want to read this. I know the loose cannon status that many give the Birchers (note- I have never been a member), but today I found a connection between John Birch and the Doolittle Raid on Japan. I had no knowledge of it before today.
It is explained in this wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_(missionary)
go down to Military Career and read the details.
—
In the early 1980’s I was Republican County Chairman in a county in NM. The county registration was 5 Dems to 1 Republican. The three groups we could always count on were the local Ranchers, the Mormons and the Birchers. Like it or not, they were reliably in our camp. Birchers were at times out in la la land on interpretation, but never in the enemy camp.
My comments aren't going to change, I have no desire to get riled up by an article posted by Rabs from the Birch Society as others on this thread have been suckered into. Until I see it posted from a reputable, reliable conservative source, it's not worth the time. There are too many real problems we face to be drawn into Rabs, Ron Paul's, or the Birch Society's shrinking (and unhinged) world view of what our problems are.
The bill is posted on thomas.loc.gov which is an official Federal website for posting legislation.
That’s not good enough for you?
We are so past your obsession with the John Birch Society. You said it numerous times and I acknowledged you had a problem with it.
I asked for your opinion on the PROPOSED LEGISLATION, more than once.
You have rabscuttle385 in your sights, and that’s your issue.
Your disclaimers in your post are worthless, because this is an active proposed law, worthy of discussion.
With that said, enough of getting on Rabs’ threads to just post your personal insults to him, of which there are many on this very thread alone.
You don’t like him, then don’t click on his threads.
But please don’t claim a higher motive for your actions when there clearly is none.
The real issue is why you or anyone on the thread think you know anything about this legislation. The only mention of it has been in the Birch Society publication. No one else has even mentioned it, not Drudge, not Malkin, no one else even knows anything about it.
Why do you insist you know something about this if there's no mention of it except in the Birch Society publication?
See Post 50 and Post 109.
The source is from a government website, which is THE site for legislation posted by the Congress: thomas.loc.gov.
Just because something is not on a conservative website does not mean something is not worthy of discussion. There are many threads posted each day from non-conservative websites and sources in the MSM, so that we can know what is going on.
Your last post speaks more of you than it does of Rabs, Lakeshark. You are still trying to prove you had a higher motive when you joined this thread. But you just cannot admit that you did not.
Ping
The discussion should be on the proposed legislation. I have been told that the motive behind it is to force military trials on the Gitmo detainees. I see that as a positive intent.
I cannot see that is the effect of the legislation as proposed. Alarm bells are going off all over my head when I read the lesiglation as posted on Thomas. That is why I posted the exact verbage in post #50.
Congressmen should not be able to hide from their actions or voting records. Neither party should. They must once again be made “accountable” to the citizens. That requires citizens being informed. That is a difficult task in the face of the current “propaganda’ masquerading as media.
I think the bill as proposed is VERY BAD. And some of those who proposed it are people I respect and admire. That hurts me.
I felt during the last Election Cycle that the “fix” was in. In both parties. It is time it was “un-fixed”.
Ping!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.