Reply #14: "in the unenviable position of defending a measure that he’s

[nofurylike]

co-sponsoring but doesn’t fully support."


http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8660

Tortured logic
by News Hits staff
12/21/2005

-snip-

Levin, a Michigan Democrat, finds himself in the unenviable position of defending a measure that he’s co-sponsoring but doesn’t fully support.

-snip-

Attorney Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, tells News Hits that coercive interrogation is “just a nice term for torture.”

-snip-

If the amendment passes, writes Bazelon, “we will have both parties to thank for putting on the record that the United States is a country that locks people up based on testimony obtained by torture that they don’t know about and can’t challenge.”

-snip-

But it goes further than that. It has to do with a foundation of law that dates back to the Magna Carta in 1215, and has been part of the legal foundation of this country throughout its history. At issue is the writ of habeas corpus, which mandates that those accused of crimes have the right to be presented with the evidence being used against them, and to have that evidence reviewed by a judge. Although Graham-Levin-Kyl provides for the eventual review of tribunal actions by the U.S. Court of Appeals in cases where sentences of 10 years or more are handed down, “it is basically a rubber stamp of a rubber stamp,” Goodman says. “There is virtually no representation for a person accused of being an enemy combatant. It certainly doesn’t grant the scope of review available under a traditional writ of habeas corpus.”

-snip-

***

awful.


peace