Thursday, September 28, 2006

The New Anthem

My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of chimpery, in ball vice I sing:
Land where waterboarding's fine, land of the torturin' kind,
From ev'ry cat o'nine let victims scream!

It's just a matter of time before I disappear I guess:

Here's just one example of what's in the bill that few people are aware of. Yale professor Bruce Ackerman writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

"This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops 'during an armed conflict,' it also allows him to seize anybody who has 'purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.' This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison."

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