NYT Op/Ed: Terrorism & The Law - In D.C., A Need to Right Wrongs ("anathema to American democracy")

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/opinion/15sun1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Editorial
Terrorism and the Law: In Washington, a Need to Right Wrongs

Published: July 15, 2007
Congress and President Bush are engaged in a profound debate over what the founding fathers intended when they divided the powers to declare and conduct war between two co-equal branches of government. But on one thing, the Constitution is clear: Congress makes the rules on prisoners.

At least that is what it says in Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 11 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to “make rules concerning captures on land and water.” And it is good that Congress seems finally ready to get back on the job. This week, the Senate will consider a bill that would restore to the prisoners of Guantánamo Bay the right to challenge their detention in court.

- snip -

Shutting Guantánamo Bay will not be easy — and it will not be enough. Of about 375 inmates, the administration says only about 80 can be charged under the Military Commissions Act. Along with Guantánamo the entire law needs to be scrapped. Prisoners against whom there is actual evidence of crimes should be tried either in military or federal courts. Mounting an effective prosecution may be hard, since these prisoners were held for years without charges and some were tortured. But it is up to the administration’s lawyers — who helped Mr. Bush create the problem by allowing indefinite detention and torture to begin with — to deal with it.

- snip -

... Defense Secretary Robert Gates said “the biggest challenge is finding a statutory basis for holding prisoners who should never be released and who may or may not be able to be put on trial.”

Challenge? The very idea is anathema to American democracy. Congress did harm enough by tolerating Mr. Bush’s lawless detainee policies, and then by passing the Military Commissions Act. Giving the president a dictator’s power to select people for detention without charges on American soil would be an utter betrayal of their oath to support and defend the Constitution, and of the founders’ vision of America.

[TahitiNut]

1. "betrayal of their oath to support and defend the Constitution"

Yes ... this seems to be a virulent virus inside the beltway. "betrayal" = treason.