BUSH's Plan To Erode Our Liberties-"A Sustained & Long-Term Incursion On ALL Our Civil Liberties"

[kpete]

A White House Plan to Erode Our Liberties
Aziz Huq

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In obtaining a broad definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" at a time of partisan panic and electoral heat, the Administration has laid the groundwork for justifying future detention operations on firmer legal grounds. It is stashed away as a weapon to be leveled against the basic human liberty from governmental detention. Today, the definition may be a gateway to the military commissions--but that was always a secondary end. In the heat of crisis, the same provision may well be invoked for far, far more.

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Consider this: If--heaven forbid--another attack were to occur, think about how much easier it would be to use this new statutory framework to secure a new and harsher set of coercive interrogation rules. That's the situation the MCA sets up.

What this week's rulings show is that the White House's protests about the urgency of the MCA were false and that the Administration was going for bigger fish. It was laying the foundation of a far broader detention and coercive interrogation policy for the future. And in large part, this effort has succeeded.

This is why the MCA needs to be rolled back:
It is far more than a piecemeal erosion of the rights of Guantánamo detainees.
It is the spearhead of a more sustained and long-term incursion on all our civil liberties.

more at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070625/huq