TAKING A SHIT ON THE CONSTITUTION

Courtesy of Eschaton, the New York Times editorial board weighs in on the soon-to-become-law "anti-terrorism" bill:

Rushing Off a Cliff

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

Click here for the rest.

The essay also explains why Senate Democrats didn't even try to filibuster this travesty (they fear "soft on terrorism" ads in these last few weeks before the elections), as well as the real reason Bush needs this bill (the evidence needed to convict detained bigtime "illegal combatants" was tortured out of them and cannot be used in a real trial), but the most offensive outrages are listed above. And what a list it is.

After all these years, after countless outrages, I am truly amazed. It's open season on Muslims and people with brown skin. We really are now on the proverbial slippery slope: the Democrats had a shot at stopping this hideous bill and they didn't try. Our government is utterly broken, and, believe me, we're all in big fucking trouble.

It's no longer over the top to look at this old poem in terms of recent events:

First they came...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

When the Republicans came for the Muslims...

Human beings, over the years, aren't terribly original in their behavior and thinking. History really does repeat itself, as has happened countless times throughout the ages. We all have this "it can't happen here" mentality. But it is happening, and I don't see anything at all on the horizon to stop it. If something doesn't radically change in the next five years or so, we are so fucked.

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