NYT/AP: Specter to Push for Foreign Detainee Rules

[DeepModem Mom]

Specter to Push for Foreign Detainee Rules
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 4, 2005
Filed at 8:50 a.m. ET


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The continuing uproar over U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib has a top Senate Republican looking at the need to clarify in law the rights of foreign detainees.

On the heels of Amnesty International calling the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ''the gulag of our time,'' Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., will hold hearings this month on the treatment of foreign terrorism suspects there....

***

Specter, according to an aide, is in the preliminary stages of drafting a bill to establish procedures for detentions and exploring the possibility of making the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court the venue for challenging them....

***

While the human rights watchdog worries about Congress putting into law ''enemy combatant'' status, which it says is a category of prisoner not sanctioned by international and humanitarian treaties, it applauded Specter for looking into the issue....

***

Specter's hearing will focus on the detention of enemy combatants at both Guantanamo and in the United States, and whether trying them before military tribunals provides them adequate due process, the senator's aide said....


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Foreign-Detainees.html

[skooooo]

1. I thought "Phil Specter"...

...when I first read the headline..lol.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I think Phil is otherwise engaged with legal troubles?

What happened to that case? Somehow I missed it --

[skooooo]

5. Don't know about his legal case...

..but have you seen his hair lately?????..LMAO.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bullimiami]

4. there are laws already in place.

geneva conventions et al. and the us signed the treaties so they are US law as well.

now if he wants to start enforcing them maybe we have something, otherwise he is full of shit.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. Smokescreen. Laws/rules were ALREADY in place before the....

...NeoCons took over.

[truth2power]

7. "establish procedures for detentions"? Hey, Arlen,

let me save you some time. Here's a procedure you could use...it's called the Geneva Conventions. Sheesh! He really is a moron. :banghead:

[tsuki]

8. No, I don't think so. He is bringing it to the Senate. That is what is

important. NeoCons are going to keep ignoring the rules. What is it the moron said on Randi--I listen to those that agree with me, or something like that. I commend Arlen for at least hanging the wash out, not letting it mould in the wash tub.

[truth2power]

12. You have a point, tsuki...

Just getting it out there is really important.

Yet another reason, IMO, for the Dems in Congress to keep bringing up the impeachment issue. I know that's not going to happen with a Repug Congress, but we should keep harping on it.

[tsuki]

17. But, Arlen is really bucking the NeoCons. They almost removed

him from his position once. I wonder what will happen now.

[Kber]

9. Amazing how an upcoming meeting with the All Mighty

can really focus the mind.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. I wondered about that, if it was possible that his health...

prompted this.

[damntexdem]

11. Why does Spector think this will have an effect on what the Bushistas do?

After all, existing international, and domestic, law has not prevented from establishing their Gulag.

[leesa]

15. Because they will pretend no laws existed until the Senate makes some up.

They will say, "there were no rules", and the sheeple will believe.

[sojourner]

13. Wasn't he also one of the break-away repugs in Senate?

He seems to be genuinely concerned; ie, he knows that efforts must be made to stop the runaway train called the Bush Administration. And if his health has led him to examine his soul, then so much the better.

Won't change the fact that he's a Republican and that we here will disagree with him on many, many, (MOST) things. But to come forward to bring this crapola into light of the Senate body - that's a good thing IMO. Hopefully the same "middle-of-the-road" gang will work together to make something really happen. IT IS A START!

[struggle4progress]

14. Constitution Article I Section 8 Paragraph 11: "make Rules concerning ..

.. Captures on Land and Water" ...

Some folks have been trying to get Congress to do this for the last three years. It's somewhat less prescient now, after Abu Ghraib and the ghost detainees.

Specter has sometimes supported human rights in the past. My real concerns would be that this move might be used as a smokescreen and that King George's loyalists in the current Congress are simply seeking a vehicle to regularize the worldwide secret gulag and a host of ugly practices like extraordinary rendition.

[liveoaktx]

16. I'm DONE calling these people detainees- they are PRISONERS

Detaining somebody is when you stop them when they're on the way out the door and you make them late 10 minutes for their next appointment. Being detained is being on your way home from work and traffic is slow. Being a PRISONER in the gulag means you're put in, without an attorney, without necessarily a trial and where,when you speak up and complain about how you're treated, the President of the country that is IMPRISONING you says you HATE his country.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. Spector's not being a good Republican

He's not kissing the spincter of the Dim Son.

No wonder they call him a RINO.