No Dominion

Civilian courts have no oversight:

WASHINGTON - Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision of a law at the center of President Bush's anti-terrorism plan.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.

Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.

If they decide you're guilty, you have no right to say otherwise. You have no right to say anything, really, on your own behalf.

I hold out a feeble hope for the Supreme Court challenge.

I dare anyone to say he or she is surprised by this. This is where we are. This is what we value. We have been heading for this at a thousand miles an hour since Sept. 12, 2001. Say you're surprised. I dare you.

A.

Comments

[Eli]

Say you're surprised. I dare you.

Don't look at me. This is the new America, made over in the Republicans' own image.

Thank you *so* bloody much to everyone who didn't pay attention and voted for Bush because he seemed like a reg'lar guy, or because Kerry looked French, or because Al Gore said he invented Love Story and the internets. And thank you so much to all the media who obligingly passed along every bullshit Republican narrative to emanate from Karl Rove's fax machine. Your apathy, inattention, and outright corruption has made this all possible.

[four legs good]

I find this horrifying beyond words.

The right to challenge unjust detention was one of the major things we fought for in our revolutionary war.

The idea that we would just throw that away, with hardly a whimper, is appalling.

[CrispyShot]

Anyone know how Dems voted on the Military Commissions Act last year? I seem to recall that there was some initial backbone, followed by much caving in.

Any chance that our new majority will do anything to fix this? When do we start the letter-writing campaign?

[CrispyShot]

Eli, this one's for you: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2007/2/6gladstone.html

(Just this morning I had a conversation with a co-worker about the whole "who would you rather have a beer with?" thing. My answer has always been, "I don't want to have a beer with the President. I want him to be know what the f*ck is going on." Why people choose the vaguest blatherers of broad generalities, black-and-white jingoism, and sound bites (Bush, Reagan) over someone in command of details and facts (Clinton, Gore, Kerry) to lead this nation is beyond me.)

[MapleStreet]

In international law, is there any possibility that they can appeal to some sort of world court or does that have to wait for the war crimes tribunal for Cheney / Bush ?

[virgotex]

MapleStreet, keep up!

Remember, we don't believe in world courts, or the UN, or the Geneva Convention, or really even, the rest of the world.

Remember? 9/11 changed everything....

[hoppycalif]

There certainly was a terrible day in our history in 2001, but it wasn't 9/11. It was 1/20. Surviving 9/11 has been a piece of cake. Surviving 1/20 is still problematical.

[Nora]

Suggestion: everybody who is outraged by this should contact his or her Senators and demand that they support Dodd's Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007. We should not have to put up with the horrible disaster of the Military Commissions Act, rammed into law at the last possible moment as the Republicans were facing the likelihood of their own minority status in November.

IIRC, both New York's Senators voted against the Military Commissions Act, and most of the Dems in the Senate did as well, but I'm open to correction on this.

[Eli]

CrispyShot, that was excellent - I must blog it now.

And about the beer thing: I want to be fucking intellectually *intimidated* by my president. I want to think, "Damn, thank God we've got someone who understands and can manage this stuff - I sure couldn't", as opposed to, "I'm pretty sure my cat could do that."