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Originally Posted by kangaeru
Your liberty is being threatened when your government defends the practices of torturing and indefinitely detaining prisoners of war, in violation of international human rights laws, using their classifcation as 'enemy combatants' and not 'prisoners of war' as the cornerstone of their justification. Off-shore torture facilities...who knows, one day it may be loudly dissenting Americans start winding up there? Why should a facility like that even exist?
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I am going to have to repeat myself to address your ignorace here.
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Not to mention everything our military is doing in places like Gitmo has been affirmed by the Supreme both historical in cases like Ex parte Quirin, and more recently Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (names might switch, but I'm pretty sure those are correct). All the constitution affords is due process and searches to be reasonable: putting illegal combatants in military tribunals is not unreasonable and not an afront to any due process, why do you have military POW status? So you can seperate and act with military people, sending military personnal to military court is due process, as such those who fight outside the realm of war illegally are not afforded any of the rights of POW or common/civil law.
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For the record here is a basic lesson is realist power politics, the only legitimate political player is a sovereign state, international law only has authority as it is lended by said sovereign; Bush and the American government swear feality to the American populace, not some international order. Furthermore "illegal combatant" has historical standing dating back to international law and treaty in the late 19th century in the Hague treaty.
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Your liberty is being threatened when your government seeks to gain the right to arbritrarily spy on any American citizen who they feel might be up 'anti-american' activities. Sure, you may be doing nothing illegal--but what if you're having an affair with somebody, and her husband has a friend in the FBI. What if he could tap both your phone, sniff your e-mail, and see your tax returns, without ever having to go through a judge?
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Put it to Judicial review something that our constitution allows for. The President as the executive is allowed to act into good faith the laws that congress executes. I agree that the executive might have overstepped his authority in this matter, but you sir are completely coming out of left field with you exagerrations regarding this matter.
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Sadly, it seems a lot of you are completely missing my point. I'm not saying im being oppressed, I'm saying that the way things are going, its very possible that I COULD BE because the things in place to safeguard us from ourselves, such as going before a judge who would never allow the aforementioned jealous husband to spy on his wife and her supposed lover, are disappearing from society. And we're allowing it to happen, in the name of preserving HomeLand Security and the Safety of the American Way Of Life. What could be more un-american than handing over unchecked power to those who could, if they wished, abuse it and in doing so harm us? At what point do you say, "I don't care if a bomb goes off in Times Square, I would rather live in a society which is as safe as possible within the confines of constitutionally protected rights" and when do you say, "Here's the key to my house, I'm gonna go on a vacation, let me know when it's safe and I can have my keys back"
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Bottomline is I thing just about every point here is unsubstantiated, exagerrated, or completely false.