Senate Approves Detainee Bill Backed by Bush

By Charles Babington and Jonathan Weisman

Congress approved landmark changes to the nation's system of interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects last night, preparing the ground for possible military trials for key al-Qaeda members under rules that critics say will draw stiff constitutional challenges.

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Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill

By R. Jeffrey Smith

The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.

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Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)
With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.
by Molly Ivins


AUSTIN, Texas - Oh dear. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. In Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to “cut and run” on Iraq.

Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. “I just could not believe he would say that to me,” said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?

The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of “technical fixes” that were the point of the putative “compromise.” It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.

This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.

Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The “heart attack” came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had “basically been pulpified,” according to the coroner.

The story of why and how it took the Times so long to print this information is in the current edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. The press in general has been late and slow in reporting torture, so very few Americans have any idea how far it has spread. As is often true in hierarchical, top-down institutions, the orders get passed on in what I call the downward communications exaggeration spiral.

For example, on a newspaper, a top editor may remark casually, “Let’s give the new mayor a chance to see what he can do before we start attacking him.”

This gets passed on as “Don’t touch the mayor unless he really screws up.”

And it ultimately arrives at the reporter level as “We can’t say anything negative about the mayor.”

The version of the detainee bill now in the Senate not only undoes much of the McCain-Warner-Graham work, but it is actually much worse than the administration’s first proposal. In one change, the original compromise language said a suspect had the right to “examine and respond to” all evidence used against him. The three senators said the clause was necessary to avoid secret trials. The bill has now dropped the word “examine” and left only “respond to.”

In another change, a clause said that evidence obtained outside the United States could be admitted in court even if it had been gathered without a search warrant. But the bill now drops the words “outside the United States,” which means prosecutors can ignore American legal standards on warrants.

The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Quick, define “purposefully and materially.” One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.

The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.

As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon “degenerates into a playground for sadists.” But not unbridled sadism—you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving “severe pain” and substituted “serious pain,” which is defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain.”

In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: “The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.”

Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary—these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law.

I’d like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis.

To find out more about Molly Ivins and see works by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.


http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0928-20.htm

Kindness of Wundermaus


Following in the footsteps of the House, the Senate this afternoon approved the bill which vests in the President the power of indefinite, unreviewable detention (even of U.S. citizens) and which also legalizes various torture techniques. It is not hyperbole to say that this is one of the most tyrannical and dangerous bills to be enacted in our nation’s history.

The final Senate vote was 65-34. The Democrats lacked the votes for a filibuster and therefore did not attempt one. Twelve (out of 44) Senate Democrats voted in favor of this bill, while only one Republican (Chafee) voted against it. The dishonorable list of Democrats voting for the bill: Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich).

One can look at the Democrats’ conduct here in one of two ways. On the one hand, it is true that the Democrats disappeared from the debate until today, all but hiding behind John McCain in the futile hope that he would remain steadfast in his opposition to the White House. Once the Democrats designated McCain as the Noble and Wise Torture Expert who spoke on their behalf, it became very difficult for them to oppose the "compromise" bill whereby McCain predictably capitulated and gave the Bush administration virtually everything it wanted. Democrats painted themselves into this corner by failing forcefully to advocate their own position against torture and indefinite detention.

Nonetheless, it is simply a fact that virtually every Republican in the House and the Senate (with one sole exception in the Senate and only 7 in the House) voted in favor of this tyrannical bill, while Democrats overwhelmingly opposed it (in the House, 160 Democrats voted "no," while 34 voted "yes"). With those facts assembled, it is fair to say that the Republicans are the party of torture, indefinite and unreviewable detention powers, and limitless presidential power, even over U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. By contrast, Democrats have largely opposed these tyrannical, un-American and truly dangerous measures. Even if Democrats didn’t oppose them as vociferously as they could have and should have — and that is plainly the case – this is still a meaningful and, at this point in our country’s history, a critically important contrast.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/28/c...people-forever/

12 Democrat US Senators Legalize Torture -

Senator Tom Carper (DE) http://carper.senate.gov/
Senator Tim Johnson (SD) http://johnson.senate.gov/
Senator Mary Landrieu (LA) http://landrieu.senate.gov/
Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) http://lautenberg.senate.gov/
Senator Joe Lieberman (CT) http://lieberman.senate.gov/
Senator Robert Menendez (NJ) http://menendez.senate.gov/
Senator Bill Nelson (FL) http://billnelson.senate.gov/
Senator Ben Nelson (NE) http://bennelson.senate.gov/
Senator Mark Pryor (AR) http://pryor.senate.gov/
Senator Jay Rockefeller (WV) http://rockefeller.senate.gov/
Senator Ken Salazar (CO) http://salazar.senate.gov/
Senator Debbie Stabenow (MI) http://stabenow.senate.gov/

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file....0929detain.php

U.S. Senate passes new detainee rules
By Kate Zernike The New York Times
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2006
WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate approved a measure on Thursday on the interrogations and trials of terrorism suspects, establishing far-reaching rules to deal with what President George W. Bush has called the most dangerous combatants in a different type of war.

The vote was 65 to 34. It was cast after more than 10 hours of often impassioned debate that touched on the Constitution, the horrors of Sept. 11 and the role of the United States in the world.

Both parties also positioned themselves for the continuing clash over national security going into the homestretch of the midterm elections.

The bill would set up rules for the military commissions that will allow the government to proceed with the prosecutions of high-level detainees including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It would make illegal several broadly defined abuses of detainees, while leaving it to the president to establish specific permissible interrogation techniques. And it would strip detainees of a habeas corpus right to challenge their detentions in court.

The bill is the same as one that the House passed, eliminating the need for a conference between the two chambers. The House is expected to approve the Senate bill in a perfunctory vote on Friday, sending it to the president to be signed.

The bill was a compromise between the White House and three Republican senators who had resisted what they saw as Bush's effort to rewrite the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Although the president had to relent on some major provisions, the vote allows him to claim victory in achieving a main legislative priority.

"As our troops risk their lives to fight terrorism, this bill will ensure they are prepared to defeat today's enemies and address tomorrow's threats," the president said in a statement after the vote.

Republicans argued that the new rules would provide the necessary tools to fight a new kind of enemy.

"Our prior concept of war has been completely altered, as we learned so tragically on Sept. 11, 2001," Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, said. "And we must address threats in a different way."

Democrats argued that the rules were being rushed through for political gain too close to a major election and that they would fundamentally threaten the foundations of the American legal system and come back to haunt lawmakers as one of the greatest mistakes in history.

"I believe there can be no mercy for those who perpetrated the crimes of 9/11," Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, said. "But in the process of accomplishing what I believe is essential for our security, we must hold onto our values and set an example that we can point to with pride, not shame."

Twelve Democrats crossed party lines to vote for the bill. One Republican, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, voted against it.

But provisions of the bill came under criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats, with several crossing lines on amendments that failed along narrow margins.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, arguing for an amendment to strike a provision to bar suspects from challenging their detentions in court, said it "is as legally abusive of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution as the actions at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and secret prisons were physically abusive of detainees."

The amendment failed, 51 to 49.

Even some Republicans who voted for the bill said they expected the Supreme Court to strike down the legislation because of the provision barring court detainees' challenges, an outcome that would send the legislation right back to Congress.

"We should have done it right, because we're going to have to do it again," said Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon, who voted to strike the provision and yet supported the bill.

The measure would broaden the definition of enemy combatants beyond the traditional definition used in wartime, to include noncitizens living legally in the United States as well as those in foreign countries and anyone determined to be an enemy combatant under criteria defined by the president or secretary of defense.

It would strip at Guantánamo detainees of the habeas right to challenge their detention in court, relying instead on procedures known as combatant status review tribunaals. Those trials have looser rules of evidence than the courts.

It would allow evidence seized in this country or abroad without a search warrant to be admitted in trials.

The bill would also bar the admission of evidence obtained by cruel and inhuman treatment, except any obtained before Dec. 30, 2005, when Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act, that a judge declares reliable and probative.

Democrats said the date was conveniently set after the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.

The legislation establishes several "grave breaches" of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention that are felonies under the War Crimes Act, including torture, rape, murder and any act intended to cause "serious" physical or mental pain or suffering.

The issue was sent to Congress as a result of a Supreme Court decision in June that struck down military tribunals that the Bush administration had established shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court ruled that the tribunals violated the Constitution and international law.

The White House submitted a bill this month to authorize a tribunal system, setting off intraparty fighting as the three Senate Republicans, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and John W. Warner Jr. of Virginia, insisted that they would not support a provision that in any way appeared to alter the commitments under the Geneva Conventions.

Such a redefinition, they argued, would send a signal to other nations that they, too, could rewrite their commitments to the 57-year-old conventions and, ultimately, lead to Americans seized in wartime being abused and tried in kangaroo courts.

The White House and the senators came to their agreement last week.

Democrats and human rights groups objected to changes in the legislation over the weekend, as the House and White House drafted final language, including defining enemy combatants and setting rules on search warrants.

"We should get this right, now, and we are not doing so by passing this bill," Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is the minority leader, said before the vote. "Future generations will view passage of this bill as a grave error."

Human rights groups called the vote to approve the bill "dangerous" and "disappointing." Critics feared that it left the president a large loophole by allowing him to set specific interrogation techniques.

Senators Graham, McCain and Warner rebutted that vociferously, arguing in floor statements, as well as in a colloquy submitted into the official record, that the measure would in no way give the president the authority to authorize any interrogation tactics that do not comply with the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions, which bar cruel and inhuman treatment, and that the bill would in no way alter the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

"The conventions are preserved intact," McCain promised his colleagues from the floor.

After the vote, Graham said: "America can be proud. Not only did she adhere to the Geneva Conventions, she went further than she had to, because we're better than the terrorists."

Besides the amendments that would have struck the ban on habeas corpus cases, the others that failed included one that would have established a sunset on the measure to allow Congress to reconsider it in five years and one that would have require the C.I.A. to submit to Congressional oversight.

Another failed amendment would have required the State Department to inform other nations of what interrogation techniques it considered illegal for use on American troops, a move intended to prompt the administration to say publicly what techniques it considers out of bounds.

http://sp.trafficmarketplace.com/f.ad/t.pun.default/

Senate OKs Detainee Interrogation Bill

By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans succeeded this week in pushing through a key piece of President Bush's anti-terror agenda, passing along party lines legislation that would endorse the military program to detain and interrogate terrorists.

The administration's allies fell short, however, in their efforts to authorize the terrorism surveillance program championed by Bush. That bill would have to be finished after lawmakers return for a lame-duck session following the November elections.

Both chambers this week approved legislation that sets up "military commissions" to prosecute terrorists. It also would prohibit the severe abuse of detainees, like mutilation and rape, but grant the president leeway to decide which other interrogation techniques are permissible.

The Senate's 65-34 vote on Thursday followed a House vote of 253-168 on a nearly identical measure a day earlier. To avoid having to reconcile differences between the two bills, which were described as minor, the House planned to vote Friday on the Senate bill and send that version to the president to sign.

"The Senate sent a strong signal to the terrorists that we will continue using every element of national power to pursue our enemies and to prevent attacks on America," Bush said in a statement Thursday night.

The White House failed to help bridge differences between the Senate and the House on the eavesdropping program. The House, on a 232-191 vote Thursday, approved a bill to grant legal status to the warrantless wiretapping program with new restrictions. The Senate bill was different enough that efforts to reach a compromise on the two measures was unlikely before the elections.

Most Democrats opposed the detainee bill, contending that Republicans were pushing through a sloppy measure to sell voters, but not because it made sense. GOP policies on national security "may have been tough, but they certainly weren't smart," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

"I'm convinced that future generations will view passage of this bill as a grave error," added Reid, D-Nev.
Added Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., "We are being asked to consider legislation that will determine how our troops and personnel, foreign troops and personnel, as well as innocent bystanders will be treated when captured during conflict."

But Republicans said passage of the bill would withstand court scrutiny and the test of time.

"In this new era of threats, where the stark and sober reality is that America must confront international terrorists committed to the destruction of our way of life, this bill is absolutely necessary," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

The overall bill would prohibit war crimes and define such atrocities as rape and torture but otherwise would allow the president to interpret the Geneva Conventions, the treaty that sets standards for the treatment of war prisoners.

Under the bill, a terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be tried by a military commission so long as he was afforded certain rights, such as the ability to confront evidence given to the jury and having access to defense counsel.

Those subject to commission trials would be any person "who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents." Proponents say this definition would not apply to U.S. citizens.

The bill would eliminate some rights common in military and civilian courts. For example, the commission would be allowed to consider hearsay evidence so long as a judge determined it was reliable. Hearsay is barred from civilian courts.

The legislation also says the president can "interpret the meaning and application" of international standards for prisoner treatment, a provision intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.

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The House detainee resolution is H.R. 6166. The Senate bill is S. 3930.

The House surveillance bill is H.R. 5825; the Senate bill is S. 3931.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1751699.htm
US Senate passes new detainee laws
The US Senate has passed controversial new guidelines on detaining and prosecuting "war on terror" suspects, over the objections of opponents who say the measure seriously curtails detainees' rights.

The laws will allow new military tribunals to be set up to try detainees being held in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, including Australian David Hicks.

The Senate vote, which was passed 65 to 34, comes a day after its approval by the House of Representatives.

It also follows a personal appeal from US President George W Bush to lawmakers on Capitol Hill for the swift passage of the legislation.

The legislation has become a major battleground in the national debate, pitting measures to safeguard the country from terrorism against the need to protect civil liberties.

Republican Senator John McCain says the Bill is a compromise between competing interests but one which, crucially, maintains the US commitment to adhere to the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of foreign combatants.

"The United States should champion the Geneva Conventions, not look for ways to get around them lest we invite others to do the same," Senator McCain said.

"America has more personnel deployed in more places than any other country in the world.

"This unparalleled exposure only serves to further demonstrate the critical importance of our fulfilling the letter and the spirit of our international obligations."

The US President had urged law makers to get the legislation to him for his signature before Congress adjourns this weekend.

"I want to congratulate the House for passing a very vital piece of legislation that will give us the tools necessary to protect the American people," Mr Bush said.

He says the Bill "will give us the capacity to be able to interrogate high-value detainees and at the same time give us the capacity to try people in our military tribunals."

The measure was drafted in response to a US Supreme Court ruling in June that Mr Bush had overstepped his powers and breached the Geneva Conventions by setting up special war crimes tribunals for terrorism suspects.

The sweeping legislation sets guidelines to interrogate suspects and will send several hundred inmates held at the Guantanamo Bay to trial after years of detention.

'Great mistake'

Most Democrats opposed the administration-backed plan and see it as violating US principles and values by prosecuting terrorists without affording the due process allowed to most defendants in the US criminal justice system.

"We can and must protect what it means to be an American," Democrat Chris Dodd had argued on the Senate floor.

"This longstanding tradition of our country about to be abandoned here is one of the great, great mistakes that I think history will record."

Since the opening of the Guantanamo Bay camp after the September 11 terrorist attacks, not one of the several hundred prisoners held there has been afforded a trial.

The draft law authorises special military tribunals to prosecute the Guantanamo detainees, allows for secret CIA-run prisons and forbids "cruel and unusual" punishment of detainees, without further clarification of what falls in that category.

Detainees will be deprived of all legal recourse to protest the conditions of their detention.

Critics have charged that Mr Bush merely wants legal cover to allow interrogators to continue using "alternative" methods of questioning that reportedly include a simulated drowning technique known as "waterboarding", sleep deprivation and subjecting suspects to extreme temperatures.

On the Senate floor just before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said he feared that alleged abuse of detainees could continue.

"The President says the United States does not engage in torture ... but this Bill gives the President authority to reinterpret our obligations, and limits judicial oversight of that process, putting our own troops at risk on the battlefield," he said.

- AFP