Getting Political again
While other people may enjoy the feeling, this is one time I really hate to say "I told you so."
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with National events, then it may interest you to know that just this past Friday, the Senate passed a bill that basically sanctions torture and the president's "right" to imprison US citizens without a trial.
And just in case you don't realize it at the moment- this is a HUGE deal and in a very BAD way.
God... where do I begin? Well I guess I should hook you all up with some knowledge of exactly what has happened. This is an article from the Washington Post about it. Please read the entire thing though, b/c at first glance, some people might say "oh this is a good thing." B/c yes, a part of the bill will help out a few people in Guantanamo Bay, but in all actuallity it screws the majority of them over.
And in the end, this is NOT just about Guantanamo Bay. This reaches a lot farther. For what this bill REALLY means, check out this excellent piece.
For those of you who are too lazy to read that article (which is a shame really, b/c it's very informative), I'll just copy and paste one or two pretty important items from it.
The first and probably most important snippet from the article is this:
"The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House [well, this article was written before Friday, it's actually already been passed], 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." Similarly, Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."
This last point means that even if there were a habeas corpus right inserted back into the legislation (which is unlikely at this point anyway), it wouldn't matter much, if at all, because the law would authorize your detention simply based on the DoD's decree that you are an enemy combatant, regardless of whether it was accurate. This is basically the legalization of the Jose Padilla treatment -- empowering the President to throw people into black holes with little or no recourse, based solely on his say-so.
-And I don't know about you, but I find that SCARY! Now I know some Bush defenders will quickly use the argument that "if you're a good law abiding citizen, you have nothing to worry about." And to that I say, "get your head out of the sand!" A law was just passed that basically allows the President (and any future Presidents) to throw whoever they want in jail for whatever reason he/she wants! That means it can happen to an innocent person! God forbid someone is framed, or there is misinformation. Or heck, even if it has nothing to do with terrorism, they can basically use that as an excuse, put you away, and you won't be given a trial! They can basically use this law to just get rid of whoever they want.
[I actually like to call this law Bush's "plan B." Why? Because his bid for wire-tapping was shot down, so you know what, they actually did themselves one better. B/c now they don't even NEED proof from a phone conversation. All they need is a suspicion and then they can take you and throw away the key! At least before they needed some kind of proof. Now it's basically just on the President's say-so!]
Think I'm being paranoid? Ok, maybe situations like that won't happen right away. But let's not forget, this is a LAW that has passed. Meaning it's not only for use by this administration, but all future administrations. So imagine, we have someone corrupt like Bush in there now, who knows who we may have 2 years or even 50 years from now?
And like I said, imagine you are an innocent who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? You can be thrown in jail, have all your rights taken away with no way to get out! Is that an unlikely scenario? Maybe a bit, but we all know it very well could happen, and if it were to happen to just ONE innocent person, that'd be too much!
Think about it, why do we have a justice system? We have criminal defense lawyers not to keep criminals out of jail, but to make sure they get a fair trial, AND to help those who may be falsely accused! No one wants to see an innocent person be imprisoned. But with this new law the country is taking away these two VERY important rights!
Once again taking from that Greenwald article:
"...But even with the extreme range of abuses the Bush presidency has brought, this is undeniably something different, and worse, by magnitude, not merely by degree.
There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness and abuses of power on the one hand, and, on the other, having the American people, through their Congress, endorse, embrace and legalize that behavior out in the open, with barely a peep of real protest. Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining powers of tyranny -- one of the very powers this country was founded in order to prevent.
One could cite an infinite number of sources to demonstrate what a profound betrayal this bill is of the fundamental promises of the American system of government. As Justice Jackson wrote in his concurring opinion in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953):
Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. The judges of England developed the writ of habeas corpus largely to preserve these immunities from executive restraint."
-So imagine! This is something our country was founded on! And it's been taken away with barely any protest! Granted, it wasn't something made very public leading up to it, but the fact remains that this country is just very much uninformed!
-Oh, and let me not forget to mention the other half of the law passed. They've basically made it legal to torture prisoners. Now to just be a little fair, I'm a fan of the show 24, and on that show we've seen many actually good reasons to use torture to get crucial information. But in the end, that is just fiction. I doubt most of the information our gov't needs to get needs to be retrieved in exactly 12 minutes, if you know what I mean. But putting our use of torture aside (which is hard to do, but hear me out) the real scary part about this is what could happen to any US soldier/citizen if they are captured. If it's legal for our country to do it, then other countries will just use that as an excuse to do the same to our soldiers. And I guarentee you, they'll use methods a lot scarier than we would. So before you side with this part of the law, just think about that aspect of it.
-So yeah, as my friend Brendan said in his myspace bulletin "seriously, if you have anything but a diseased feeling in your stomach when you look at Bush these days, you're either uninformed, or have an accessible sociopathic quotient. " Sad thing, as I also said earlier, most people are just uninformed and there is just no more excuse for that in this day and age, what with the internet and tons of information available at our fingertips.
But I know how it is... I wasn't very political until I go to my current job. Up until a year after I graduated college, I didn't care much at all for anything going on in the political world! I was too busy thinking about my own personal life. But thing is, people can't be like that. B/c these things might not affect you right now, but you never know what life may throw at you (or a loved one).
So my mission right now is just to get you all informed. Please, read about these things! Bookmark CNN.com, the NYtimes, things like that. Stay in the loop! And heck, if you find these things boring, then watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. It's not "hard" news, but they may introduce you to some things going on in an amusing way, that might get you to read up on the full facts (and in an unbiased way) and form your own opinions.
So please, make sure to vote (there is an election this November), make your voices heard, and at LEAST stay informed! Oh, and feel free to forward this blog to anyone you feel should hear about these events.
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with National events, then it may interest you to know that just this past Friday, the Senate passed a bill that basically sanctions torture and the president's "right" to imprison US citizens without a trial.
And just in case you don't realize it at the moment- this is a HUGE deal and in a very BAD way.
God... where do I begin? Well I guess I should hook you all up with some knowledge of exactly what has happened. This is an article from the Washington Post about it. Please read the entire thing though, b/c at first glance, some people might say "oh this is a good thing." B/c yes, a part of the bill will help out a few people in Guantanamo Bay, but in all actuallity it screws the majority of them over.
And in the end, this is NOT just about Guantanamo Bay. This reaches a lot farther. For what this bill REALLY means, check out this excellent piece.
For those of you who are too lazy to read that article (which is a shame really, b/c it's very informative), I'll just copy and paste one or two pretty important items from it.
The first and probably most important snippet from the article is this:
"The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House [well, this article was written before Friday, it's actually already been passed], 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." Similarly, Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."
This last point means that even if there were a habeas corpus right inserted back into the legislation (which is unlikely at this point anyway), it wouldn't matter much, if at all, because the law would authorize your detention simply based on the DoD's decree that you are an enemy combatant, regardless of whether it was accurate. This is basically the legalization of the Jose Padilla treatment -- empowering the President to throw people into black holes with little or no recourse, based solely on his say-so.
-And I don't know about you, but I find that SCARY! Now I know some Bush defenders will quickly use the argument that "if you're a good law abiding citizen, you have nothing to worry about." And to that I say, "get your head out of the sand!" A law was just passed that basically allows the President (and any future Presidents) to throw whoever they want in jail for whatever reason he/she wants! That means it can happen to an innocent person! God forbid someone is framed, or there is misinformation. Or heck, even if it has nothing to do with terrorism, they can basically use that as an excuse, put you away, and you won't be given a trial! They can basically use this law to just get rid of whoever they want.
[I actually like to call this law Bush's "plan B." Why? Because his bid for wire-tapping was shot down, so you know what, they actually did themselves one better. B/c now they don't even NEED proof from a phone conversation. All they need is a suspicion and then they can take you and throw away the key! At least before they needed some kind of proof. Now it's basically just on the President's say-so!]
Think I'm being paranoid? Ok, maybe situations like that won't happen right away. But let's not forget, this is a LAW that has passed. Meaning it's not only for use by this administration, but all future administrations. So imagine, we have someone corrupt like Bush in there now, who knows who we may have 2 years or even 50 years from now?
And like I said, imagine you are an innocent who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? You can be thrown in jail, have all your rights taken away with no way to get out! Is that an unlikely scenario? Maybe a bit, but we all know it very well could happen, and if it were to happen to just ONE innocent person, that'd be too much!
Think about it, why do we have a justice system? We have criminal defense lawyers not to keep criminals out of jail, but to make sure they get a fair trial, AND to help those who may be falsely accused! No one wants to see an innocent person be imprisoned. But with this new law the country is taking away these two VERY important rights!
Once again taking from that Greenwald article:
"...But even with the extreme range of abuses the Bush presidency has brought, this is undeniably something different, and worse, by magnitude, not merely by degree.
There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness and abuses of power on the one hand, and, on the other, having the American people, through their Congress, endorse, embrace and legalize that behavior out in the open, with barely a peep of real protest. Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining powers of tyranny -- one of the very powers this country was founded in order to prevent.
One could cite an infinite number of sources to demonstrate what a profound betrayal this bill is of the fundamental promises of the American system of government. As Justice Jackson wrote in his concurring opinion in Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953):
Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. The judges of England developed the writ of habeas corpus largely to preserve these immunities from executive restraint."
-So imagine! This is something our country was founded on! And it's been taken away with barely any protest! Granted, it wasn't something made very public leading up to it, but the fact remains that this country is just very much uninformed!
-Oh, and let me not forget to mention the other half of the law passed. They've basically made it legal to torture prisoners. Now to just be a little fair, I'm a fan of the show 24, and on that show we've seen many actually good reasons to use torture to get crucial information. But in the end, that is just fiction. I doubt most of the information our gov't needs to get needs to be retrieved in exactly 12 minutes, if you know what I mean. But putting our use of torture aside (which is hard to do, but hear me out) the real scary part about this is what could happen to any US soldier/citizen if they are captured. If it's legal for our country to do it, then other countries will just use that as an excuse to do the same to our soldiers. And I guarentee you, they'll use methods a lot scarier than we would. So before you side with this part of the law, just think about that aspect of it.
-So yeah, as my friend Brendan said in his myspace bulletin "seriously, if you have anything but a diseased feeling in your stomach when you look at Bush these days, you're either uninformed, or have an accessible sociopathic quotient. " Sad thing, as I also said earlier, most people are just uninformed and there is just no more excuse for that in this day and age, what with the internet and tons of information available at our fingertips.
But I know how it is... I wasn't very political until I go to my current job. Up until a year after I graduated college, I didn't care much at all for anything going on in the political world! I was too busy thinking about my own personal life. But thing is, people can't be like that. B/c these things might not affect you right now, but you never know what life may throw at you (or a loved one).
So my mission right now is just to get you all informed. Please, read about these things! Bookmark CNN.com, the NYtimes, things like that. Stay in the loop! And heck, if you find these things boring, then watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. It's not "hard" news, but they may introduce you to some things going on in an amusing way, that might get you to read up on the full facts (and in an unbiased way) and form your own opinions.
So please, make sure to vote (there is an election this November), make your voices heard, and at LEAST stay informed! Oh, and feel free to forward this blog to anyone you feel should hear about these events.
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