Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

McCain and Leiberman have proposed a bill which allows for indefinite detention of American citizens at the president's whim.

Niemöller [1] is not mocked.

The whole point of "enemy combatant" was to put people outside the law, so that the government could do whatever it pleased to them. The law isn't an absolutely reliable protection, but it's a good bit better than nothing.

It was obvious to me that there was no reason for American government lawlessness to be limited to people who aren't American citizens.

I don't take the abuse of non-Americans lightly. A good bit of the anger in this post is for the Americans who thought indefinite detention without charge could only happen to someone else.

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Information about the bill from Glenn Greenwald, from an article at The Huffington Post which I found out about it because Steve Barnes was interested in the people from the French Television show who weren't willing to give big electric shocks.

I'm feeling let down by my friendslist. What happened to the glory days when every frightening thing the government was doing was urgent news? Teapartyers behaving like assholes is not a substitute.

Perhaps I'm being unfair-- I don't follow facebook or twitter, and lj's been kind of quiet lately. Has anyone else heard about this monstrous bill?

Anyway, here are the sponsors of the bill:
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]

Scott Brown [R-MA]

Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]

James Inhofe [R-OK]

George LeMieux [R-FL]

Joseph Lieberman [I-CT]

Jefferson Sessions [R-AL]

John Thune [R-SD]

David Vitter [R-LA]

Roger Wicker [R-MS]

More, more, more. Did Obama really authorize INTERPOL to operate independently in the US, without regard for the bill of rights.


[1] First they came for the..... and when they finally came for me, there was no one to speak up.

Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

McCain and Leiberman have proposed a bill which allows for indefinite detention of American citizens at the president's whim.

Niemöller [1] is not mocked.

The whole point of "enemy combatant" was to put people outside the law, so that the government could do whatever it pleased to them. The law isn't an absolutely reliable protection, but it's a good bit better than nothing.

It was obvious to me that there was no reason for American government lawlessness to be limited to people who aren't American citizens.

I don't take the abuse of non-Americans lightly. A good bit of the anger in this post is for the Americans who thought indefinite detention without charge could only happen to someone else.

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Information about the bill from Glenn Greenwald, from an article at The Huffington Post which I found out about it because Steve Barnes was interested in the people from the French Television show who weren't willing to give big electric shocks.

I'm feeling let down by my friendslist. What happened to the glory days when every frightening thing the government was doing was urgent news? Teapartyers behaving like assholes is not a substitute.

Perhaps I'm being unfair-- I don't follow facebook or twitter, and lj's been kind of quiet lately. Has anyone else heard about this monstrous bill?

Anyway, here are the sponsors of the bill:
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]

Scott Brown [R-MA]

Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]

James Inhofe [R-OK]

George LeMieux [R-FL]

Joseph Lieberman [I-CT]

Jefferson Sessions [R-AL]

John Thune [R-SD]

David Vitter [R-LA]

Roger Wicker [R-MS]

More, more, more. Did Obama really authorize INTERPOL to operate independently in the US, without regard for the bill of rights.


[1] First they came for the..... and when they finally came for me, there was no one to speak up.

Two more points

The reason I'm shocked by that bill is that I don't want such stuff to be publicly acceptable as a policy proposal.

Hypocrisy has the advantage of offering a little chance of leverage, and if the plainest tyranny is presented as acceptable, it's necessary to build up a moral system from scratch. I guess it is, anyway.

The Overton Window is a concept from political theory-- policy isn't decided from among all possibilities, it's decided from what people consider to be worth imagining. A lot of work going into shifting the window-- this can be seen recently in regards to gay marriage. To my mind, S3801 is giving the window a hard yank in a bad direction.

********

The other point: this doesn't fit with the usual narrative of partisan politics. If George Bush tried to expand the power of the presidency, that's ordinary status-seeking.

However, as you may have heard, Obama is a Democrat with Republicans in congress as a bunch of very pointy stones in his shoes, but the supporters of that bill are 9 Republicans and 1 Independent.

Here's an interesting theory:

I've heard someone posit that McCain and Lieberman intend to put this bill as a rider on the health insurance reform reconciliation bill or some other bill they know Obama won't dare veto. I haven't found any confirmation for this, and I don't know why they'd bother. Obama has already announced his plans to hold between twenty and sixty of the current Guantanamo Bay prisoners forever without trial, so that part of the bill obviously wouldn't bother him at all. And as for banning trials of any such prisoners in the future... well, all signs currently point to Obama backing down on Holder's attempt to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian courts.

At present, I can honestly see Obama signing this bill and praising it as a regrettable but necessary tool in the ongoing (and eternal) war on terrorism.

Two more points

The reason I'm shocked by that bill is that I don't want such stuff to be publicly acceptable as a policy proposal.

Hypocrisy has the advantage of offering a little chance of leverage, and if the plainest tyranny is presented as acceptable, it's necessary to build up a moral system from scratch. I guess it is, anyway.

The Overton Window is a concept from political theory-- policy isn't decided from among all possibilities, it's decided from what people consider to be worth imagining. A lot of work going into shifting the window-- this can be seen recently in regards to gay marriage. To my mind, S3801 is giving the window a hard yank in a bad direction.

********

The other point: this doesn't fit with the usual narrative of partisan politics. If George Bush tried to expand the power of the presidency, that's ordinary status-seeking.

However, as you may have heard, Obama is a Democrat with Republicans in congress as a bunch of very pointy stones in his shoes, but the supporters of that bill are 9 Republicans and 1 Independent.

Here's an interesting theory:

I've heard someone posit that McCain and Lieberman intend to put this bill as a rider on the health insurance reform reconciliation bill or some other bill they know Obama won't dare veto. I haven't found any confirmation for this, and I don't know why they'd bother. Obama has already announced his plans to hold between twenty and sixty of the current Guantanamo Bay prisoners forever without trial, so that part of the bill obviously wouldn't bother him at all. And as for banning trials of any such prisoners in the future... well, all signs currently point to Obama backing down on Holder's attempt to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian courts.

At present, I can honestly see Obama signing this bill and praising it as a regrettable but necessary tool in the ongoing (and eternal) war on terrorism.