Dear Senators Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson:

The history of the present King … [George] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

Do you recognize these words Senator? These words were penned by Thomas Jefferson around this time of year some two-hundred and thirty years ago. Unfortunately, they ring true today.

You have personally participated in usurpations of the Constitution of the United States and founding principles of this country. You have frequently voted to suspend and/or eliminate the rights for which those brave Patriots gave their lives and fortunes. Your recent votes and the actions of the entire U.S. Government have desecrated the principles for which those people fought and died.

You now have an opportunity to right a wrong. I expect you to vote in favor of S 2022 (prev, S 185). Unlike you, I have faith that our two-hundred year old judicial system is capable of handling difficult and sensitive cases. They certainly have in the past.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived… as people in fear. And now – our rights and our freedoms in peril – we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy. For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before – and we have been here before led here – by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives – only to watch him use those Acts to jail newspaper editors. American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote, about America.

We have been here, when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives – only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war. American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said, about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9-0-6-6 was necessary to save American lives – only to watch him use that Order to imprison and pauperize 110-thousand Americans…

While his man-in-charge…General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen – he is still a Japanese.” American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did – but for the choices they or their ancestors had made, about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons. And each, was a betrayal of that for which the President who advocated them, claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased. Many of the very people Wilson silenced, survived him, and…one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900-thousand votes… though his Presidential campaign was conducted entirely… from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States, to the citizens of the United States, whose lives it ruined.

The most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human. We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us. We have listened to the little voice inside that has said “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.” We have accepted, that the only way to stop the terrorists, is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets, was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute… the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always… wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?” Wise words. And ironic ones, Mr. Bush. Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act. You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly – of course – the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously… was you. We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history, we have not before codified, the poisoning of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow. You, sir, have now befouled that spring. You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order. You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

And – again, Mr. Bush – all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “Unlawful Enemy Combatants” and ship them somewhere – anywhere – but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “Unlawful Enemy Combatant” and ship you somewhere – anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria… ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant” – exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check. He lied to get it. He lied as he received it. Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush. “In which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them.”

‘Presumed innocent,’ Mr. Bush? The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

‘Access to an attorney,’ Mr. Bush? Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

‘Hearing all the evidence,’ Mr. Bush? The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir. They are lies, that imperil us all. “One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” …you told us yesterday… “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope. Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought. Habeas Corpus? Gone. The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once sir – somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 – that with only a little further shift in this world we now know – just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died -

Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “Unlawful Enemy Combatant” for… and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, sir, all of them – as always – wrong.

Good night, and good luck.

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135 years to the day after the last American President (Ulysses S. Grant) suspended habeas corpus, President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006. At its worst, the legislation allows President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld to declare anyone – US citizen or not – an enemy combatant, lock them up and throw away the key without a chance to prove their innocence in a court of law. In other words, every thing the Founding Fathers fought the British empire to free themselves of was reversed and nullified with the stroke of a pen, all under the guise of the War on Terror.

Georgetown University Law Professor Johnathon Turley said this:

“People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system.-The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It’s otherworldly..People clearly don’t realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I’m not too sure we’re gonna change back anytime soon.”

Unfortunately, it is a scary time in which we live, but not because of terrorism…we should be in fear of our government.

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These…. people… crazy people… very, very scared people?… voted to dump the Magna Carta protections of being able to confront your accuser, and said it’s okay to lock up “suspected terrorists” FOR LIFE without trial or anyway of protestng their innocence, you know sort of like in The Man in the Iron Mask.

I mean, they’re SUSPECTED, we don’t know they were picked up and identified correctly. We’ve already heard about the innocent Canadian man, picked up at an airport, sent off to Syria where he was tortured, and then years later was returned to Canada, without so much as a “thank you for your time, sorry to have bothered you.”

Read this blog by H. Constance Gorman, a lawyer who is donating her time to represent a detainee at Guantanamo.

She has been representing a man “swept up” in Afghanistan and falsely accused by “bounty hunters” who were paid by the US for pointing out terrorists — now that’s an idea that has no chance of getting false i.d.’s, doesn’t it? Pay informants in a scary country, for sure there won’t be any mistakes made, will there?

And this man has been in Guantanamo for 5 years. His daughter was 6 months when he was taken. And of course he’s just been there, uncharged, left to rot. And he’s ill as well.

So to people like this, the Congress has said to President Bush: yes, you have our permission, go do more of this.

Don’t worry if you make some errors. We prefer that innocent people be locked up for life with no recourse, as long as we can feel safe. And so we can tell the scared people in America – we are protecting you! Because that’s the kind of America we love! Safety first, to hell with laws, they’re inconvenient, they’re for mushy liberals who don’t know the value of shock and awe. Who cares if innocent people are harmed? Not us! Not John McCain or Lindsay Graham or John Warner, our maverick moderate Republicans. They turn out to be Mickey Mouse mavericks.

AND the Congress and the Mickey Mouse mavericks have allowed the Cheney-inspired rewriting of the term “enemy combatatant” so it has been broadened beyond people “found on the battlefield,” and it now includes people who “aid and abet” the terrorists… and this open-to-interpretation phrase could probably be applied to American citizens — it doesn’t preclude that — and it is all to be determined SOLELY by President Bush. That makes me feel safe!

Not only is Bush infallible like the Popes used to be, but he is so stable. Do you notice how frayed and angry he is all the time, repeating his few sentences about why we must stay fighting in Iraq until the cows come home, or even if only Laura and the dog are the only ones who agree with him?

Such resolute sticking to his beliefs! No matter what else anyone else thinks, he will continue saying “I am right, I am right, I am right.” Whew!

Thank you, everyone who voted for him. Twice. Thank you, to those in Ohio who helped steal that particular state for Mr. Bush in the last election. Kisses to you, Mr. Blackwell, in particular. (Kenneth Blackwell was the blatantly unfair Secretary of State in Ohio at the time, and like Katherine Harris was also the head of the Bush re-election campaign. No conflict of interest there. And like Ms. Harris, impeccable in his fairness to the sanctity of the vote.)

But back to the detainee bill — who might these more broadly defined “aiders” to the enemy be?

Well, Senator Patrick Leahy in his speech on the Senate floor, speaking against the passing of this bill, gave as an example someone who maybe gave to lots of charities, and gave unknowingly to one that happened to funnel money to, say, Hamas….well, with the wording of this law, Mr. Bush could lock that person up and keep them from seeing a lawyer and just never hold a trial or even accuse them. Forever. I’m told Senator Graham said that sort of thing wouldn’t happen… but is it wise to ever put that in a law, so it’s possible?

(This broadening of the definiton of “enemy combatant” happened AFTER the compromise bill was agreed on, the rewriting came from Cheney’s office the weekend before the vote, and I’m sure Graham-McCain-Warner wanted to be good Republicans and not upset the “united Republican front” so as to hurt the election. So they capitulated. They did stop Bush from literally rewriting the Geneva Conventions. And they got any accused the right to see classified information against them … though edited, who can say how much. But they didn’t fight hard enough,they caved in without fixing this bad bill; and the President is still given ENORMOUS, crushing power by the bill. But who cares as long as we all feel “safe”? Who cares as long as it’s not us who is arrested falsely?)

Who else could be accused by Mr. Bush of “aiding and abetting” and be locked away for good without a trial? Maybe editorial writers who criticize the war? Huffington Post bloggers? Maybe… instead of paying bounty hunters for tips, neighbors could be encouraged to anonymously accuse other neighbors of aiding and abetting.

With the detainee law, the Republican Senators and Congressmen (with the help of 12 Democrats) basically said to Bush, “Here are the tools to be a dictator, go forth and …have fun with it.” It is the worst legislation ever passed in my lifetime, and I am in my late 40s.

Here is another explanation of the dangers of this bill in a cogent post by Aziz Hug on “junking checks and balances.”

As has been said before, facism does not arrive in long black coats and jackboots, but quietly it sneaks in during the night.

This detainee bill is really bad. No President, and especially not President Bush, should be given such power. To lock people up without any recourse, for as long as the War on Terror lasts, which could be forever. Are they kidding? How could they pass such a law?

Our Republican Hamlet, Senator Arlen Specter, bravely put forth an amendment that would have reinstated the Magna Carta habeaus corpus protections of being guaranteed a court hearing to proclaim one’s innocence and know what one was accused of. But it lost – 48 to 51. Then Mr. Specter, after saying the lack of such protection set the rule of law back 900 years, went ahead and voted for the whole bill anyway. Why?

I don’t understand Republicans. Even the moderates who stand up to Bush for a few moments ultimately cave in to this dangerous adminstration, and to the fear-based atmosphere that has overtaken our country. I truly fear for the soul of this country.

Call or write your representatives and demand better.

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I always laughed and shook my head whenever I heard this stuff. Extreme paranoia wrapped in the tinfoil of conspiracy, I thought. This is still America, and these Bush fools will soon pass into history, I thought. I am a citizen, and the First Amendment hasn’t yet been red-lined, I thought.

Matters are different now.

It seems, perhaps, that the people who warned me were not so paranoid. It seems, perhaps, that I was not paranoid enough. Legislation passed by the Republican House and Senate, legislation now marching up to the Republican White House for signature, has shattered a number of bedrock legal protections for suspects, prisoners, and pretty much anyone else George W. Bush deems to be an enemy.

So much of this legislation is wretched on the surface. Habeas corpus has been suspended for detainees suspected of terrorism or of aiding terrorism, so the Magna Carta-era rule that a person can face his accusers is now gone. Once a suspect has been thrown into prison, he does not have the right to a trial by his peers. Suspects cannot even stand in representation of themselves, another ancient protection, but must accept a military lawyer as their defender.

Illegally-obtained evidence can be used against suspects, whether that illegal evidence was gathered abroad or right here at home. To my way of thinking, this pretty much eradicates our security in persons, houses, papers, and effects, as stated in the Fourth Amendment, against illegal searches and seizures.

“Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable – already a contradiction in terms – and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.”     

Speaking of collecting evidence, the torture of suspects and detainees has been broadly protected by this new legislation. While it tries to delineate what is and is not acceptable treatment of detainees, in the end, it gives George W. Bush the final word on what constitutes torture. US officials who use cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment to extract information from detainees are now shielded from prosecution.

It was two Supreme Court decisions, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that compelled the creation of this legislation. The Hamdi decision held that a prisoner has the right of habeas corpus, and can challenge his detention before an impartial judge. The Hamdan decision held that the military commissions set up to try detainees violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.

In short, the Supreme Court wiped out virtually every legal argument the Bush administration put forth to defend its extraordinary and dangerous behavior. The passage of this legislation came after a scramble by Republicans to paper over the torture and murder of a number of detainees. As columnist Molly Ivins wrote on Wednesday, “Of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.”

It seems almost certain that, at some point, the Supreme Court will hear a case to challenge the legality of this legislation, but even this is questionable. If a detainee is not allowed access to a fair trial or to the evidence against him, how can he bring a legal challenge to a court? The legislation, in anticipation of court challenges like Hamdi and Hamdan, even includes severe restrictions on judicial review over the legislation itself.

In section 950j. the bill criminalizes any challenge to the legislation’s legality by the Supreme Court or any United States court. “No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever, including any action pending on or filed after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions under this chapter.”

The Bush administration is preemptively overriding any challenge to the legislation by the Supreme Court.

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling to previously strike down Bush’s shadow penal system, Alberto Gonzales is already out threatening federal judges to shut up and get behind the dictator or face the consequences.

Gonzales has the sheer gall to attack judges for even considering to “overturn long-standing traditions or policies without proper support in text or precedent,” which is exactly what Gonzales, Bush and the rest of the White House criminals are doing themselves by de facto abolishing the Bill of Rights!

The Republicans in Congress have managed, at the behest of Mr. Bush, to draft a bill that all but erases the judicial branch of the government. Time will tell whether this aspect, along with all the others, will withstand legal challenges. If such a challenge comes, it will take time, and meanwhile there is this bill. All of the above is deplorable on its face, indefensible in a nation that prides itself on Constitutional rights, protections and the rule of law.     

Underneath all this is the definition of “enemy combatant” that has been established by this legislation. An “enemy combatant” is now no longer just someone captured “during an armed conflict” against our forces. Thanks to this legislation, George W. Bush is now able to designate as an “enemy combatant” anyone who has “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.”

After five hours of searching through the 80-plus page bill, Alex Jones, who won the 2004 Project Censored award for his analysis of Patriot Act 2, uncovered numerous other provisions and definitions that make the bill appear as almost a mirror image of Hitler’s 1933 Enabling Act.

The definition of torture that the legislation cites is US code title 18 section 2340. This is a broad definition of torture and completely lacks the specific clarity of the Geneva Conventions. This definition allows the use of torture that is, “incidental to lawful sanctions.” In alliance with the bill’s blanket authority for President Bush to define the Geneva Conventions as he sees fit, this legislates the use of torture.

The media has spun the bill as if it outlaws torture – it only outlaws torture for “enemy combatants,” and in fact outlaws the retaliation of any military against the United States as “murder.” Those deemed “enemy combatants” are not even allowed to fight back yet the government affords itself every power including the go-ahead to torture.

Further actions that result in the classification of an individual as a terrorist include the following.

• Destruction of any property, which is deemed punishable by any means of the military tribunal’s choosing.
• Any violent activity whatsoever if it takes place near a designated protected building, such as a charity building.
• A change of the definition of “pillaging” which turns all illegal occupation of property and all theft into terrorism. This makes squatters and petty thieves enemy combatants.     

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