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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by guyy
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
ask any illegal alien that has been arrested. they still are given due process and the same protections of the US Constitution.
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Really?
What about the guy Nicholas Corbett blew away?
Besides, how would you know that they were given the "protections of the US constitution" if they were, say, shipped to Guantanamo or another shining pearl on our global gulag? "For purposes of national security we could neither confirm nor deny that they were present in any US operated facility, nor could we confirm or deny that they have been renditioned to a third party."
The Bush cabal has decided that in the current state of exception, the constitution allows them to do whatever they want. Considering what has happened to US citizens like Jose Padilla and perfectly "legal" aliens like Mahir Arar ("intercepted" on his way home to Canada and shipped off to Syria to be tortured), i'd have to say that they aren't just blowing smoke. They will indeed do whatever they want.
Supreme court? Those are the guys & gals who said that keeping to some bureaucratic timetable was more important than counting the votes, so hey, let's give it to Monkey Boy. Besides, who wants to wait 4-5 years in the hold of a prison ship or in a tin shed on an airbase in Poland waiting for people like Scalia and Thomas to decide that geez, maybe they did go too far this time?
Keep in mind that with passports (which are gov. property and always revocable) and the no-fly list and other restrictions and protocols on travel, governments control who travels. Maybe it's not spelled out in US constitution, but travel is a pretty basic human right. It's listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights & the Intl. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, these days, for all intents and purposes, you have to have their permission to travel. The no-fly list is fairly loose now, but it's pretty easy to see how this could become much more restrictive and/or expanded to other modes of travel.
So, no, things are not hunky dory. |
sorry let me qualify that... Illegal Aliens on US Soil...
If you're dragging Guantanamo Bay into the conversation, then it's only right that it's not as simple as you are stating.
Quote:
View: Does Constitution apply to enemy combatant on U.S. soil?
Source: CNN
posted with the TFP thread generator
Does Constitution apply to enemy combatant on U.S. soil?
Does Constitution apply to enemy combatant on U.S. soil?
Story Highlights
Ali al-Marri, sleeper al Qaeda agent suspect, in brig six years in U.S.
No issue if he were in Gitmo, where the U.S. says Constitution doesn't apply
U.S.: Bush's wartime powers mean military can hold any citizen without charge
Does U.S. resident al-Marri belong in civilian court system or military's?
WASHINGTON (AP) -- If his cell were at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the prisoner would be just one of hundreds of suspected terrorists detained offshore, where the U.S. says the Constitution does not apply.
But Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is a U.S. resident being held in a South Carolina military brig; he is the only enemy combatant held on U.S. soil. That makes his case very different.
Al-Marri's capture six years ago might be the Bush administration's biggest domestic counterterrorism success story. Authorities say he was an al Qaeda sleeper agent living in middle America, researching poisonous gases and plotting a cyberattack.
To justify holding him, the government claimed a broad interpretation of the president's wartime powers, one that goes beyond warrantless wiretapping or monitoring banking transactions. Government lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a resident and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely.
There is little middle ground between the two sides in al-Marri's case, which is before a federal appeals court in Virginia. The government says the president needs this power to keep the nation safe. Al-Marri's lawyers say that as long as the president can detain anyone he wants, nobody is safe.
A Qatari national, al-Marri came to the U.S. with his wife and five children on September 10, 2001. He arrived on a student visa seeking a master's degree in computer science from Bradley University, a small private school in Peoria, Illinois.
The government says he had other plans.
According to court documents citing multiple intelligence sources, al-Marri spent months in al Qaeda training camps during the late 1990s and was schooled in the science of poisons.
The summer before al-Marri left for the United States, he allegedly met with Osama bin Laden and September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The two al Qaeda leaders decided that al-Marri would make a perfect sleeper agent and rushed him into the U.S., the government says.
A computer specialist, al-Marri was ordered to wreak havoc on the U.S. banking system and serve as a liaison for other al Qaeda operatives entering this country, according to a court document filed by Jeffrey Rapp, a senior member of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
According to Rapp, al-Marri received up to $13,000 for his trip, plus money to buy a laptop, courtesy of Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who is suspected of helping finance the September 11 attacks.
A week after the attacks, Congress unanimously passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force. It gave President Bush the power to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against anyone involved in planning, aiding or carrying out the attacks.
The FBI interviewed al-Marri that October and arrested him in December as part of the September 11 investigation. He rarely had been attending classes and was failing in school, the government said.
When investigators looked through his computer files, they said, they found information on industrial chemical suppliers, sermons by bin Laden, how-to guides for making hydrogen cyanide and information about chemicals labeled "immediately dangerous to life or health," according to Rapp's court filing. Phone calls and e-mails linked al-Marri to senior al Qaeda leaders.
In early 2003, he was indicted on charges of credit card fraud and lying to the FBI. Like anyone else in the United States, he had constitutional rights. He could question government witnesses, refuse to testify and retain a lawyer.
On June 23, 2003, Bush declared al-Marri an enemy combatant, which stripped him of those rights. Bush wrote that al-Marri possessed intelligence vital to protect national security. In his jail cell in Peoria, Illinois, however, he could refuse to speak with investigators.
A military jail allowed more options. Free from the constraints of civilian law, the military could interrogate al-Marri without a lawyer, detain him without charge and hold him indefinitely. Courts have agreed the president has wide latitude to imprison people captured overseas or caught fighting against the U.S. That is what the prison at Guantanamo Bay is for.
But al-Marri was not in Guantanamo Bay.
"The president is not a king and cannot lock people up forever in the United States based on his say-so," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer who represents al-Marri and other detainees. "Today, it's Mr. al-Marri. Tomorrow, it could be you, a member of your family, someone you know. Once you allow the president to lock people up for years or even life without trial, there's no going back."
Glenn Sulmasy, a national security fellow at Harvard University, said the issue comes down to whether the nation is at war. Soldiers would not need warrants to launch a strike against invading troops. So would they need a warrant to raid an al Qaeda safe house in a U.S. suburb?
Sulmasy says no. That is how Congress wrote the bill, and "if they feel concerned about civil liberties, they can tighten up the language," he said.
That would require the politically risky move of pushing legislation to make it harder for the president to detain suspected terrorists inside the U.S.
Al-Marri is not the first prisoner who did not fit neatly into the definition of enemy combatant.
Two U.S. citizens, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, were held at the same brig as al-Marri. But there are differences. Hamdi was captured on an Afghanistan battlefield. Padilla, too, fought alongside the Taliban before his capture in the United States.
By comparison, al-Marri had not been on the battlefield. He was lawfully living in the U.S. That raises new questions.
Did Congress really intend to give the president the authority to lock up suspected terrorists overseas but not those living here?
If another September 11-like plot was discovered, could the military imprison the would-be hijackers before they stepped onto the planes?
Is a foreign battlefield really necessary in a conflict that turned downtown Manhattan into ground zero?
Also, if enemy combatants can be detained in the U.S., how long can they be held without charge? Without lawyers? Without access to the outside world? Forever?
These questions play to two of the biggest fears that have dominated public policy debate since September 11: the fear of another terrorist attack and the fear the government will use that threat to crack down on civil liberties.
"If he is taken to a civilian court in the United States and it's been proved he is guilty and it's been proved there's evidence to show that he's guilty, you know, he deserves what he gets," his brother, Mohammed al-Marri, said Friday from his home in Saudi Arabia. "But he's just been taken there with no court, no nothing. That's shame on the United States."
Courts have gone back and forth on al-Marri's case as it worked its way through the system. The last decision, a 2-1 ruling by a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel, found that the president had crossed the line and al-Marri must be returned to the civilian court system. Anything else would "alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic," the judges said.
The full appeals court is reviewing that decision and a ruling is expected soon. During arguments last year, government lawyers said the courts should give great deference to the president when the nation is at war.
"What you assert is the power of the military to seize a person in the United States, including an American citizen, on suspicion of being an enemy combatant?" Judge William B. Traxler asked.
"Yes, your honor," Justice Department lawyer Gregory Garre replied.
The court seemed torn.
One judge questioned why there was such anxiety over the policy. After all, there have been no mass roundups of citizens and no indications the White House is coming for innocent Americans next.
Another judge said the question is not whether the president was generous in his use of power; it is whether the power is constitutional.
Whatever the decision, the case seems destined for the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the first military trials are set to begin soon against detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Marri may get one, too. Or he may get put back into the civilian court system. For now, he waits.
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But see these borders and customs with searches and siezures existed pre-9/11... so there's some sort of connection to how the laws are interpreted.
You are free to travel, you aren't free to ENTER into a country. There is a very large difference. People have been turned away by immigration officers from many countries that deny people entry. But they are not barred from travel.
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