Court Backs Administration on Detainee Issue
Published February 20, 2007 by The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washing ... nted=print (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Detainees-Lawsuits.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision of a law at the center of President Bush's anti-terrorism plan.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.
Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.
The ruling is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.
The Military Commissions Act was crafted in response to that decision and the president hailed it as a necessary tool for bringing terror suspects to justice.
Civil libertarians and leading Democrats decried the law as unconstitutional and a violation of American values. The law allows the government to indefinitely detain foreigners who have been designed as ''enemy combatants'' and authorizes the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics.
But the most criticized provision of the law was the one stripping U.S. courts of the authority to hear arguments from detainees who said they were being held illegally.
Attorneys argued that the detainees aren't covered by that provision and that the law is unconstitutional.
''The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress,'' Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote.
U.S. citizens and foreigners being held inside the country normally have the right to contest their detention before a judge. The Justice Department said foreign enemy combatants are not protected by the Constitution.
Randolph and Judge David B. Sentelle ordered that the hundreds of cases pending in the lower courts be dismissed.
Judge Judith W. Rogers dissented, saying the cases should proceed.
''District courts are well able to adjust these proceedings in light of the government's significant interests in guarding national security,'' Rogers wrote.
to follow up: there is now a law on the books that American citizens can be held indefinitely without the right to a trial by jury in American courts...it was snuck into a military appropriations bill by Bush* and Congress last October...what does this mean for the world beyond the U.S.? When the world's most powerful military nuclear superpower begins to clamp down on the rights and freedoms of its own citizenry, NOBODY on the planet is safe...
I am not as convinced as I was that the U.S. Congress has the balls to stop this push to corporate fascism...I don't know they can, I did, now I wonder...they can't even get a fucking debate on the Senate floor about the four-year-old Iraq War...
People I respect, like Thomas Hartmann on Air America Radio, say Congress is pushing back, that people are waking up...
but at the same time, Bush* has sent a THIRD AIRCRAFT CARRIER to the waters off Iran's shores...they are trying to get Iran to flinch, to take the bait and fire some guns...
my paranoia has begun flinching again, and I really wondering if there will come a time when the tyranny becomes too much to bide, when the feeling is that it is permanent, and nothing can undo it peacefully...
I don't know...the news today is darkening my skies.... :evil:
Yeah well. this is but another example of how those spineless wonks of the judiciary are willing to accomodate repression and restrict rights... Damn, now I'm gonna be depressed all day, full of smoldering angst.. Freedom---Liberty...what an archaic and unenable concept in todays AmeriKKKa eh :cry: ------ sal
This is not good news for civil liberties. The courts seem to be operating under the assumption that the gubmit is infallable, which we all know is not the case.
But we'd better get used to this trend. From what I've been reading, the court has shifted to Scalia being the critical swing vote on many issues and that means we might be seeing corporate fascism as law instead of only the current norm. Roe vs Wade may be in trouble, too. Some right-wing crackpots have proposed death certificates for aborted fetuses. But wouldn't that make a need for conception certificates?
lw
I've also heard that overturning Roe v Wade, like an anti-gay marriage Constitutional amendent, will never actually happen, will simply be dangled out to so-called conservative voters during election cycles as a way to trump up votes. That's called "appealing to the base." Of course, base also means lowest, as in the example, "Some reality TV shows appeal to the basest instincts in viewers."
This actually makes sense. Polls show a majority of Americans support gay rights and women's reproductive rights, but if, say, a McCain can get to the "God, Guns, and Gays" crowd in big enough numbers, like in recent elections, electoral races can be turned.
Anyway, I have more hope today, I have to. Too many hours awake in the tumult that is my brain, not to mention the ones writhing in cauldrons of dreams. If not for hope, whether rational or not, I would not be able to do much more than drool my way along wrapped in a rubber suit in the corner of some facility. :twisted:
I wish I had so much faith in roe/wade standing. The politics of reversal are a done deal. The issue is potentially in the courts hands and they are appointed for life.
It will be interesting to see if any conservative judge has a fit of moderate shame and refuses to turn that decision over. Its happened in the past, but the court appears to be headed over the right edge..
lw
Quote from: "cenacle"That's called "appealing to the base." Of course, base also means lowest, as in the example, "Some reality TV shows appeal to the basest instincts in viewers."
Anyway, I have more hope today, I have to. Too many hours awake in the tumult that is my brain, not to mention the ones writhing in cauldrons of dreams. If not for hope, whether rational or not, I would not be able to do much more than drool my way along wrapped in a rubber suit in the corner of some facility. :twisted:
Do they ever let the rubber crowd go outside, sit in the sun, maybe go to a basketweaving class????? senor just wants to keep all acvailable options open, don'tcha know :wink:
LOL Yeah, they let you outside once in awhile, sal. They also have the best drugs. Well, some of the best, anyay. 8)
lw
This is the result of Bush packing the court with right wing wackos. It is also the result of our congresspeople being spineless bitches. Not only spineless but willing to do bad things for a payoff. Add to that mix the fact that the fix is in with the news media and we are in deep shit. This goes beyond Bush and will continue long after him. Clinton did unconstitutional things and wouldn't even help pot smokers. Do not count on the next president to be part of the solution. It's getting close to the point that only a revolution will make any difference.
THis move by Canada is sure to rile the U$ gubmit, much like their previous rulings concerning the use of mj. It really makes us look bad, imo.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070223/D8NFK72O2.html (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070223/D8NFK72O2.html)
Canada Rules Indefinite Detention Wrong
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Feb 23, 2:41 PM (ET)
By BETH DUFF-BROWN
OTTAWA (AP) - One of Canada's most contentious anti-terrorism provisions was struck down Friday by the Supreme Court, which declared it unconstitutional to detain foreign terror suspects indefinitely while the courts review their deportation orders.
The 9-0 ruling was a blow to the government's anti-terrorism regulations. Five Arab Muslim men have been held for years under the "security certificate" program, which the Justice Department had insisted is a key tool in the fight against global terrorism and essential to Canada's security.
The court found that the system violates the Charter of Rights and Freedom, Canada's bill of rights. It suspended the judgment from taking effect for a year, to give Parliament time to rewrite the part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that covers the certificates.
The security certificates were challenged on constitutional grounds by three men from Morocco, Syria and Algeria - all alleged by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to have ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks.
The law now allows sensitive intelligence to be heard behind closed doors by a federal judge, with only sketchy summaries given to defense attorneys.
The men have spent years in jail while fighting deportation orders. They risk being labeled terrorists and sent back to their native countries, where they face possible torture.
The court called this a fundamental violation of their human rights.
"The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: Before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in a ruling for all nine justices.
"The secrecy required by the scheme denies the person named in a certificate the opportunity to know the case put against him or her, and hence to challenge the governments case," she said.
The court said the men and their lawyers should have a right to respond to the evidence used against them by intelligence agents and noted that a law in Britain allows special advocates to review sensitive intelligence material.
The Justice Department said it would have no immediate comment.
Two of the men are out on bail and remain under house arrest. Three others are being held in a federal facility in Ontario that has been dubbed the "Guantanamo Bay of the North," a reference to the prison at the U.S. base in Cuba.
Human rights activists and lawyers for the men hailed the ruling as a victory for those who believe fundamental rights and freedoms have been overshadowed by the demands of national security since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"This is a judgment that, quite frankly, I think we should all be very proud of, because our court has not bought into the rhetoric of national security," said John Norris, who represents one of the five. "They have recognized the fundamental importance of preserving the security of all of us, but at the same time has stated, in the clearest possible terms, that that must never be done at the expense of human rights."
Barbara Jackman, who represents another detainee, said the Supreme Court decision in no way compromises national security.
"It only strengthens our democracy," she said. "It's an indication to other countries that to detain people and mistreat them, it's not satisfactory. There are ways to provide fair hearings in the face of national security concerns."
Although the security certificates have been around for decades, their use became more contentious after 9/11, and more suspect since Ottawa used faulty intelligence in a case that led to a $9 million apology to another former terror suspect, Maher Arar.
In that case, the Syrian-born Canadian was seized by U.S. authorities in New York and sent to Syria for questioning about suspected ties to terrorists. He was held in a cell for a year and tortured before being sent back to Canada, where he was cleared by a federal inquiry of any links to Islamic extremists.
Five Arab Muslim men now stand accused of terrorist links under the certificates, and all deny any ties to terrorism. It was not immediately clear if the three men still in detention would be released, or remain jailed until the law is rewritten.
The most notable is Adil Charkaoui, 33, a native of Morocco. The former University of Montreal student and pizzeria operator was arrested in Montreal in 2003 and freed on bail under strict conditions in 2005. He is accused by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service of belonging to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which has ties to al-Qaida and a history of terrorist attacks in Spain.
CSIS also claims Ahmed Ressam, convicted in 2001 of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport, identified Charkaoui as someone he met at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan - a contention denied by Charkaoui.
The others are Mohamed Harkat, an Algerian native arrested in 2002 and freed on bail last year; Mahmoud Jaballah, an Egyptian who remains in detention; Mohammad Mahjoub, also from Egypt and recently granted bail, although he has yet to be released; and Hassan Almrei, a native of Syria who was arrested in 2001 and is still in custody.