How about if someone calls up and say that they saw you reading terrorist literature? Do you think it would be a big deal then? Don't forget, you have no rights to defend yourself nor give an alibi. You could have been halfway across the world at the moment with clear proof but you would not be able to show it.
Good example. we would never hear of him again either. Nor his family if they were foolish enough to report this issue to the public media (1st amendment is next?). Ursa..
Perhaps you missed it but the habeas corpus exclusion does not apply to US citizens. As far as geneva is concerned, the conventions clearlry state "lawful" combatants. By definition, non-uniformed personell are "unlawful" combatants and therefore do not have protection under the accords. FWIW, that would also apply to our SF in civilian attire.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ackerman28sep28,0,619852.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail "BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights. This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops "during an armed conflict," it also allows him to seize anybody who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison."
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2006/221006doesaffect.htm ..................... "Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all." Professor Jonathan Turley, who teaches constitutional law at George Washington University, agrees that the bill contains no provision in which American citizens are exempt from the intent of the legislation, and outlined this during a recent appearance on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show. OLBERMANN: "I want to start by asking you about a specific part of this act that lists one of the definitions of an unlawful enemy combatant as, quote, 'a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a combatant status review tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense.' "Does that not basically mean that if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant?" JONATHAN TURLEY: "It certainly does. In fact, later on, it says that if you even give material support to an organization that the president deems connected to one of these groups, you too can be an enemy combatant. And the fact that he appoints this tribunal is meaningless. You know, standing behind him at the signing ceremony was his attorney general, who signed a memo that said that you could torture people, that you could do harm to them to the point of organ failure or death. So if he appoints someone like that to be attorney general, you can imagine who he's going be putting on this board." OLBERMANN: "Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?" TURLEY: "It does. And it's a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president. In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn't rely on their good motivations. Now we must. And people have no idea how significant this is. What, really, a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values."
Chertoff can claim Pabst is a terrorist enemy combatant radicalizing himself over the internet: "We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet," Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Association of the Chiefs of Police last Monday. "They can train themselves over the Internet. They never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination," Chertoff said. "Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites." He said the July 7, 2005 attacks on London's transit system, which killed 56 people, was an example a homegrown threat, according to Reuters. To help gather intelligence on possible homegrown attackers, he said Homeland Security would deploy 20 field agents this fiscal year into "intelligence fusion centers," where they would work with local police agencies. By the end of the next fiscal year, he said the department aimed to increase that to 35 staffers, the Reuters report said.
Yup... you posted stuff that requires reading and thinking... and chickenshit neocons can't do that. No one is here to debate with you any more
Please reread the links. The actual text is a pain in the a$$, no doubt, but there are articles to help explain it, as well as the Wikipedia entry. Being a US citizen does not mean much if you are declared an "enemy combatant". That is exactly what happened to Jose Padilla, who is a US citizen and is still imprisoned. The wording is complex for a reason. Apparently it worked on you.