Does the Military Commissions Act apply only to alliens?

[usregimechange]

I am told it does but it sure doesn't read that way.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/S-3930_passed.pdf

[mmonk]

No

"Further, the MCA dramatically expands the President's powers in an array of profoundly troubling ways, including permitting him to determine what constitutes torture and who may be labeled an "unlawful enemy combatant" and therefore detained indefinitely. Such scope means that non-citizens, such as those unjustifiably rounded up in sweeps after 9/11 in the U.S., could be held without charge or trial. U.S. citizens deemed to have "materially supported" hostilities against the United States could be held as enemy combatants as well. Once in U.S. custody, the law allows detainees to be subjected to stress positions, temperature extremes, sleep deprivation, and possibly waterboarding. It also defines sexual violence crimes so narrowly that some of the outrages of Abu Ghraib, such as forced nudity, would not be punishable, and defines rape and sexual abuse in a manner that is inconsistent with international law, turning back the clock on the hard-fought victories of survivors of sexual violence. At the same time, the bill provides retroactive immunity for U.S military and intelligence officials for the torture and abuse of detainees, including the widely condemned horrors which occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo."


http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=b5stDu9ZOb&Content=871



http://ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/Docs/MCA_Signing_Briefing_Paper.pdf

[ourbluenation]

1. nope - US citizens, including *, can be named "enemies of the state"

and locked up forever without being charged or having a trial.

[magellan]

2. Let me ask a question in return

Last week the WH officially informed the district court in Washington DC that it had no jurisdiction under the newly signed into law MCA to hear 196 pending habeas petitions from Gitmo detainees.

NO JURISDICTION.

Do you know for sure that none of them are US Citizens?

If you were detained, under these circumstances, how do you suppose you'd get your right to due process if you weren't even allowed to prove you were a US citizen and habeas applied in the first place?

[papau]

3. Habeas is removed by statement for aliens, by enemy-combatant not

being allowed to get to a court for citizens.

The non-combatant clause is not restricted to non-citizens.

If called a non-combatant you can not get to Court to show you are a citizen.

In practice this removes habeas for citizens.

[flyarm]

4. no it includes all Americans!! you can now be dissapeared!!..n/t

[Freedom_from_Chains]

5. In a word no.

It is written so broadly that basically it includes anyone who Bush says it includes. On of the lynch pins of it is the section which talks about, and I don't have the text in front of my right now, that an American citizens who is found to be giving aid and comfort to the enemy can be classified as an enemy combatant.

So, in reality that means that if you are giving donations to a charity that you don't know is a front for a terrorist group that action could get you classified as an enemy combatant. Or, since the government has clearly stated that a big part of this war is a media war, speeches like Keith Olbermanns have been making lately criticizing our government could be seen as emboldening our enemies and could get Keith a one way ticket to Gitmo. In actually, the same principle could apply to those who post here on DU that do not support the government in lock step as it is possible that OBL reads this site and some of our dissatisfaction with the government to also be seen as aiding an embolden the enemy.

So the 15 second sound bit should be "Suspension of Habeas Corpus, it's for Americans too.

[Kagemusha]

6. I've heard that the Senate published the wrong law, at least at first

and that the correct law was the House version which the Senate version became altered to harmonize with. ...It sounds very messy...

But it accounts for some of the media confusion...

[tocqueville]

7. Aliens are deported to Area 51 and Terrans to Guantanamo

that what it means....