Disgraceful Bill Allows Torture and Worse
by Ian Mosley
The latest “security” bill passed by Congress allows the Bush administration and its successors to arrest anybody they want and hold them without trial, secretly and indefinitely, simply by labeling them “unlawful combatants.” The new law will eventually apply to ordinary Americans if it doesn’t already. The law may be interpreted to include “non-physical aid and assistance to terrorism.”
According to a Reuters news article “The United States could detain more foreigners as enemy combatants under legislation Congress will debate this week after a last-minute change in the bill. Democrats complained that Republicans quietly made several changes to the bill defining procedures for trying foreign terrorism suspects after an agreement last week between the White House and a group of dissident Republican senators… Senator Graham of South Carolina said the term ‘enemy combatant’ also would apply to those fighting a U.S. ally… ‘We’re making sure that an enemy combatant could be defined as something other than a front-line troop,’ Graham said. ‘We want to make sure that giving material aid and support to terrorism would put you in the enemy combatant category.’ ”
This bill could easily be interpreted to mean anyone opposing Israel is henceforth “fighting” the United States. And what does “material aid and support” mean? Money? Weapons? Propaganda, which can easily include Constitutionally protected free speech? Maybe an anti-war speech or attending a meeting of a Third Party?
The Reuters article adds an interesting post script: “Graham said U.S. citizens could not be deemed enemy combatants under the bill, But several human rights advocates said the language was so broad that they believed Americans could be detained under it. The Center for Constitutional Rights said even attorneys representing Guantanamo inmates could be deemed enemy combatants.”
There have already been a number of attorneys representing so-called “terror suspects” who have been arrested, indicted, wiretapped, searched, denied access to their clients, and subjected to other official harassment. At least one attorney was falsely accused of being a terrorist himself.
Is there any one out there who is REALLY so naive that they think this “anti-terror” bill is a good thing? Or are we seeing the beginning of the end of what few freedoms we still had left?