Bush wants the power to imprison anyone at anytime on his word alone
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President Bush has authority as commander in chief to order the indefinite imprisonment of American-born terror suspects without second-guessing by federal judges, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court yesterday.
Justice Department lawyers set the stage for a landmark courtroom battle in Virginia on Monday, telling the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond that a federal judge in Norfolk did not have the authority to conduct an inquiry into the president’s decision to imprison Yaser Esam Hamdi as an “enemy combatant” without charges, a lawyer or a trial.
The case pitting the constitutional powers of a president against the constitutional protections afforded individual Americans is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Justice Department lawyers insisted that a two-page declaration about Hamdi’s battlefield activities submitted to U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar provided “an adequate factual basis to justify the military’s wartime detention” of Hamdi without additional judicial review. The sworn declaration was submitted by a Pentagon lawyer.
I have spoken about this before, but we are a couple of bad court decisions away from the complete gutting of a major portion of our Constitution. Bush is arguing for the right to arbitrarily and without the possibility of review to hold someone indefinitely, without even bothering to charge that person.
Citizens in a democracy are not subject to the whims of the head of state. Citizens in a democracy should not have to fear being “disappeared”. Citizens in a democracy should not have to worry that the military could take them away forever.
Where is the outrage? How can anyone who believes in democracy and freedom not be appalled by this? Freedom isn’t freedom if it does not apply to everyone.
