Interesting People mailing list archives
more on Yes, it CAN happen here. (Happening right now, in fact)
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 14:06:18 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Lynn <lynn () ecgincc com> Date: September 30, 2006 1:49:31 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Cc: lauren () vortex comSubject: Re: [IP] more on Yes, it CAN happen here. (Happening right now, in fact)
I was busy maing a lot of phone calls yesterday. Senator Lautenberg's office told me he voted for the bill (no one here expected that) knowing much is unconstitutional, expecting the courts to knock down those parts of the law.Senator Menendez's office (he voted for it also) had a prepared statement
to read and would have no further comment. The Congressmen from NJ were all voting along party lines. I spent about 30 minutes talking to a leg aide that covers military. She tried very hard to defend the bill.She is the person in the office advising the Congressman on issues. She is not even old enough to remember Viet Nam - or understand it as history has
already been rewritten. She carefully explained AQ is not a government, nor a country, therefore the USG needed another method to deal with terrorists. Apparently, the Palestinian terrorists didn't need their own law.As this apparently does not apply to US citizens (yet), how does it effect
perm residents living here? Lauren is correct in this will effect treatment of US citizens traveling or living abroad. This was shown by the actions of Brazil I believe a while ago. Of course, since new US passports will have an unsafe rfid, US citizens will be very easy to pick out of a crowd. How does this increase our safety in any form? To me, this makes our safety much more precarious.I would usually say let's vote them out of office, but we can't trust the
voting machine or elections anymore. Lynn
Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: September 30, 2006 11:28:45 AM EDT To: dave () farber net Cc: lauren () vortex com Subject: Re: [IP] more on Yes, it CAN happen here. (Happening right now, in fact)It does not deny habeus (sic) corpus to U.S. citizens.The new detainee law (which even most of its supporters suggest will likely be struck down) specifically provides that the persons it covers cannot appeal their detentions until after they are tried in the tribunals. It does not force the government to actually try such persons, and in fact only a relatively few persons have actually been charged. The government can choose to try people on multiple charges at various times, or not to try them at all. This means -- no two ways to read it -- that people can be held under this law *for the rest of their lives* without ever having been charged or tried, and without any independent verification that they ever should have been held in the first place. Also, the new law explicitly allows the use of information that was obtained through torture prior to a recent deadline, apparently still permits a variety of techniques that most people would consider to be torture despite the fancy hairsplitting going on, and permits the use of hearsay evidence. We've already seen cases of innocents who were incorrectly held and tortured in this process, either at the hands of the U.S. or our allies. There are sure to be more. In every other U.S. war, combatants were repatriated within relatively short spans after the end of hostilities. But we're told that the "war on terror" (like the "war on drugs," one assumes) will last for generations -- maybe forever. The fact that the law may "only" apply to non-U.S. citizens is little comfort. There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution about habeas corpus only applying to U.S. citizens. We're setting a pattern not only for abuse of our citizens by other countries, but for future abuses against our own citizens right here, which will be similarly justified. This entire session of Congress fell short of even 100 days. More than a quarter of those were half days or less. As far as I'm concerned, Congress' behavior in terms of legislation and logistics this session has been disgusting and an affront to the honor of our country. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, IOIC - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lynn () ecgincc com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Yes, it CAN happen here. (Happening right now, in fact) David Farber (Sep 30)
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