The Military Commissions Act of 2006, recently passed by both houses of Congress contains a ticking two-part time bomb: The repealing habeas corpus protections against arbitrary arrest and jailings of indefinite duration, combined with the redefinition of the "unlawful combatant."
Here is the new, broadened definition, as enunciated in the legislation passed by the House:
"The term 'unlawful enemy combatant' means - (i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or associated forces); or (ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense."
It doesn't say "alien" or "terrorist," although it specifically includes members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It says "person" - any person, including American citizens. As Bruce Ackerman, professor of law at Yale puts it:
"Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."
Congress has now granted the president the powers of a dictator. The rest of the story of our slide into totalitarianism is merely a matter of filling in the details.
Our rulers will naturally continue to pretend that we live in a normal democratic country, that the Constitution still means something, and that nothing essential has changed - but sadly, it has.
Matthew Hine
Chattanooga
matthewhine@comcast.net