http://www.plunderbund.com/2006/09/27/house-approves-torture/ A Progressive Political Playground Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:52:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 http://www.plunderbund.com/2006/09/27/house-approves-torture/#comment-6620 Plunderbund » Greenwald points out the real problem with the torture/detainment bill Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:14:02 +0000 http://www.plunderbund.com/?p=1016#comment-6620 [...] My previous headline about this was “House approves torture“, but in reality it’s much more sinister than that. Glenn Greenwald points out that no longer is Bush simply assuming the legal authority to throw anyone - including US citizens who have never left the country - in a secret jail without the right to challenge in court, he now actually has that authority (or will, when the bill passes the Senate as expected). This last point means that even if there were a habeas corpus right inserted back into the legislation (which is unlikely at this point anyway), it wouldn’t matter much, if at all, because the law would authorize your detention simply based on the DoD’s decree that you are an enemy combatant, regardless of whether it was accurate or not. This is basically the legalization of the Jose Padilla treatment — empowering the President to throw people into black holes with little or no recourse, based solely on his say-so. [...] […] My previous headline about this was “House approves torture“, but in reality it’s much more sinister than that. Glenn Greenwald points out that no longer is Bush simply assuming the legal authority to throw anyone - including US citizens who have never left the country - in a secret jail without the right to challenge in court, he now actually has that authority (or will, when the bill passes the Senate as expected). This last point means that even if there were a habeas corpus right inserted back into the legislation (which is unlikely at this point anyway), it wouldn’t matter much, if at all, because the law would authorize your detention simply based on the DoD’s decree that you are an enemy combatant, regardless of whether it was accurate or not. This is basically the legalization of the Jose Padilla treatment — empowering the President to throw people into black holes with little or no recourse, based solely on his say-so. […]

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