| | Ed,
That 93 senators voted in favor of that law was one of those stunning moments for me... Like when 19 out of 21 congressman accepted bribes in that long ago Abscam under-cover investigation.
My understanding is that this law requires that they put a person in front of a federal judge within 120 days. Just yesterday I heard Senator Lindsey Graham, a major proponent of the bill, say that on TV.
But that still violates habeous corpus, probable cause, the right to a speedy trail, trial by jury, and due process. I don't know, but I suspect that the federal judge would likely be a pet judge and the setting is secret and that the detainee isn't permitted a lawyer and is still being held incommunicado. And the judge only determines if the detainee can be held "pending investigation" which does not have a specified time limit - If that is correct, then there is no safety for any person at any time.
With that one law, we became just like one of those banana republics that can 'disappear' a political opponent.
Senator Graham said "We are at war... The terrorist must be brought before a judge within 120 days... I wouldn't care if that were amended to be 4 days." And he went on to say what a disaster he thought it would be use the criminal justice system with Miranda rights, etc.
No one pointed out to the Senator that congress has not declared war.
No one challenged him on the presumption of guilt and that only a properly conducted legal procedure of some sort, using rational rules of evidence, probable cause, the right to confront one's accusers, etc., can establish sufficient justification for holding a person, much less establishing their guilt - i.e., validate the charge of terrorism. And Graham is a LAW MAKER!!!
I sent a letter to Senator Kyle (my other senator here in Arizona is McCain, and since he was a cosigner, I didn't bother to send one to him). The letter I got back was a form letter that continued to ignore the fact that a person must be treated as innocent until adequate evidence says otherwise and that a legal procedure to do that must exhibit due process, a speedy PUBLIC trial, a jury of his peers, rules of evidence, etc.
Given the poor quality of politicians we suffer from, I would expect that a few over-the-top war hawks would go for a law like that, and I expect that a few on the far left would like such a law, and that one or two less intelligent and easily frigntened senators might go along, and maybe even a senator or two would be willing to sell their votes in exchange for a promise to vote for their pet project in the future... but that would still only add up to say 6 to 10 votes out of 100. But 93... and they are our LAW MAKERS!!!
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Practical and moral justification of an armed rebellion requires two things: An severely abusive government and an absence of an adequate mechanism to change the abusive nature of that government. Disappearing people, over-regulation, destruction of the economy via deficit spending, massive debt, confiscatory redistributive policies, theft via crony capitalism, etc. are examples of abuse that could amount justification BUT there still exists adequate freedom to speak, to assemble, and to have a fairly executed vote. As for me, I'm keeping a close eye out for censorship, for police tactics against assembly and for voter fraud massive enough to change the outcome.
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