Gobsmacked Once Again

Yesterday, President Bush signed into law the Military Commission Act of 2006. This is a sweeping and devastating law that fundamentally changes forever how our country treats prisoners, how we view our place in the world, and ultimately, how the world will both treat and view us.

There is a lot of good reading online about this Act—I won’t re-hash it all here, nor can I do it justice as I am not a Constitutional scholar. But the basic premise of is:

"The Act changes pre-existing law to explicitly disallow the invocation of the Geneva Convention when executing the writ of habeas corpus for detainees who are not U.S. citizens [Section 5(a)]" (Source: Wikipedia)

Habeas corpus is among the most basic of our Constitutional guarantees, derived from English Common Law and included in our Constitution in Article One, section nine, as, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

What does it mean? The writ protects us--all of us--from unlawful imprisonment. As another Wikipedia article so perfectly states it, “The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.” Well, not anymore and not in the United States.

Another astounding part of this new Act is that a defendant may not invoke the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions are protocols adopted by 194 countries (oops, I guess that’s 193 now), primarily addressing the treatment of prisoners during combat. They are, essentially, the rules for “playing fair.”

This is staggering. And even more staggering is that the Act allows the President to “interpret the meaning and application” of the law (Source: AP). These are astounding powers to give a President—any President—of the United States. If you wholly trust your President, maybe it doesn’t sound so bad, but from where I sit, this Act and its potential ramifications are despotic.

Here are my basic concerns, in a nutshell:

1. The Writ of Habeas Corpus was thought important enough by the Founding Fathers to be included in the Constitution. I don’t take that lightly, nor should anyone. If this fundamental right can be so easily dismissed, what about the others? Oh, don’t get me started about the USA Patriot Act and the First Amendment….

2. Currently, the Act relates to only non-US citizens, but we’re on a slippery slope. Pandora’s box has been opened. What happens when the Federal government decides your association with Organization X is unlawful or aiding “enemy combatants”? This could have a chilling impact on our right (and responsibility—more on that another time) to protest those things with which we disagree.

I remember reading Biko by Donald Woods in college and how it hit me right smack between the eyes that, just like Steve Biko, any of us could simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time and our lives are forever changed. Biko was a Civil Rights activist on the government of South Africa’s list—and he died in their custody from head wounds. Perhaps it sounds a bit dramatic but it’s a critical point: any of us could be Steven Biko.

So you’re thinking, “Yeah, but that was South Africa under the Apartheid regime.” Here’s an example closer to home—three years ago, a Canadian citizen named Maher Arar was detained at JFK Airport and deported to Syria for 10 months. The horrifying story is here, in the Washington Post.

3. The Geneva Conventions are fundamental. Without them, there are no rules about how prisoners are treated. Yesterday, our government said, “Bully to you! We’ll do what we want with your citizens!” Nevermind that a) any prisoner is a human being with certain inalienable rights, no matter what their national origin, and b) people are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

All that goes out the window if you’re arrested as an “enemy combatant” by the United States.

And what happens to our prisoners around the world now? Will we cry “Foul!” when our citizens are waterboarded and otherwise tortured? When they’re denied access to an attorney or a trial? When they are not informed of the charges under which they’re being held? When they're killed--without reason--in custody? When they're sentenced to death? Hmmmm, interesting double standard there.

I honestly don’t know what any of us can do about this. Precious few Democrats have spoken out, save the usual suspects, including Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold. Feingold stated, “We will look back on this day as a stain on our nation's history…It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no opportunity to challenge their detention in court. And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death.” (Source: AP)

Yesterday there was a fundamental shift in how we operate in and with the rest of the world, and I fear for us.