Supreme Court hears Bush illegal detention case

Today the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan is reputed to be Bin Laden's driver. He is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, and was set for trial before a military tribunal. He has been held for over three years at Guatanamo Bay prison camp, with no access to the courts until two years ago, when the Supreme Court ruled that while the government had the right to hold detainees at Guantanamo, the prisoners could also challenge their status in federal courts. The justices at the time did not give specifics on how that should be done, or address the tribunal issue.

Bush declared Hamdan, born in 1970, an "enemy combatant," and asserted he was not covered by the Geneva Conventions, which protect regular prisoners of war. Hamdan was charged with various conspiracy counts related to terrorism. Hamdan challenged his trial before a military tribunal. He won his case in federal district court, and then lost on appeal to the District of Columbia Federal Circuit Court. His case was granted cert last November.

Several of the Justices sounded very skeptical today of governement claims that Hamdem may be tried before a miltiary tribunal instead of in an actual court, that the Geneva Convention does not apply, as well as Bush Administration claims that the Court lacks jurisdiction to act.

Hopefully the Supremes will slap the Bush arguments down. There must be some due process for these prisoners. Otherwise, they are denied treatment as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, and denied all protections. Many will say 'who cares' what these terrorirsts are denied. My response is how do we know they are actually terrorists without a real trial or due process protections? ANYONE can be scooped up and detained with only the mere claim that they are a terrorist.(Of course it might be more likely to be detained when you drive Bin Laden's car;)

If we forfeit our rights to protect ourselves from terrorism, we will have lost exactly what we most need to protect.

Resource Links: NPR Story from All things Considered, NW University Case summary and links to briefs

Is life in Iraq better now?

NPR's Anne Garrels, who has been covering Iraq for years, since before our invasion, does this interview with her driver and translator. They discuss the changes in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Fascinating and sad. Listen at THIS LINK.

Bush considered illegal searches too

While claiming the authority has not been used, senior administration officials claim that the same authority that the president has to conduct wiretaps would allow physical searches of suspect's homes.

US News and World reports that "The (senior Justice) lawyers talked with senior FBI officials about using the same legal authority to conduct physical searches of homes and businesses of terrorism suspects--also without court approval, one current and one former government official tell U.S. News...FBI Director Robert Mueller was alarmed by the proposal, the two officials said, and pushed back hard against it....
John Martin, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted the two most important cases involving warrantless searches and surveillance, says the department is sending an unambiguous message to Congress. "They couldn't make it clearer," says Martin, "that they are also making the case for inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless physical searches." The full story is at THIS LINK.

Feingold introduces censure measure

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold today is introducing a measure to censure King George for violating the constitutional rights of thousands of people by conducting an illegal wiretapping program. See THIS LINK.

This should be a litmus test of who we support politically or financially. If any candidate won't support AT LEAST censure of Bush, they don't deserve to be in office. Of course if they favor impeachment, all the better...

All the Republican rhetoric defending Bush is nonsense. Saying that he acted forcefully to defend our country might have been valid if he had only ordered the wiretap program for a month or two after 9/11/01, and then sought new laws. But when he has made it a permanent, secret program, violating the constitution and committing repeated felonies under FISA, THAT merits at least censure.

Conservative Justice O'Connor warns of dangers of "dictatorship"

Newly retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in a speech to Georgetown University warned that it takes 'a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.'

She also attacked Republicans who have sought to restrict the judicial branch of government. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies.

An NPR report on this speech is available HERE.

Bush caught lying again

This week transcripts and videos were released showing King George being briefed about Katrina in the days leading up to the disaster. Here is one excerpt:
"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Meteorologist Max Mayfield told the briefing."

Then later, after the levees were breached, and New Orleans flooded, George Bush was interviewed by ABC news. Bush told ABC's Diane Sawyer during an exclusive interview (video here) "I don't think anyone could have anticipated the breach of the levees,"

George is busted. Either he told a clear lie, or, even worse, he didn't understand his briefing from three days before. If there had just been that one briefing, we may be able to dismiss Bush's error. However, in fact, there was an entire federal hurricane simulation involving New Orleans that predicted levees being breached.

And numerous media outlets are not even mentioning Bush's lie. See This Link.