Mukasey to Congress: Defy the Rule of Law - by Stephen Lendman
Along with other past and present administration officials, Attorney General Michael Mukasey supports lawlessness and police state justice. Weeks after the Supreme Court's landmark (June 12) Boumediene ruling, he addressed the conservative, pro-war American Enterprise Institute (on July 21) and asked Congress to overrule the High Court - for the third time. His proposal:
-- subvert constitutional and international law;
-- authorize indefinite detentions of Guantanamo and other "war on terror" prisoners (including US citizens designated "enemy combatants"); and
-- deny them habeas rights, due process, and any hope for judicial fairness.
Since June 2004, the (conservative) High Court made three landmark rulings. Twice Congress intervened, and Mukasey wants a third time. In Rasul v. Bush (June 2004), the Court granted Guantanamo detainees habeas rights to challenge their detentions in civil court. Congress responded with the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) of 2005 subverting the ruling.
In June 2006, the Supreme Court reacted. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, it held that federal courts retain jurisdiction over habeas cases and that Guantanamo Bay military commissions lack "the power to proceed because (their) structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions (of) 1949."
In October 2006, Congress responded a second time. It enacted the Military Commissions Act (MCA) - subverting the High Court ruling in more extreme form. In its menu of illegal provisions, it grants the administration extraordinary unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate, torture and prosecute alleged terrorist suspects, enemy combatants, or anyone claimed to support them. It lets the President designate anyone anywhere in the world (including US citizens) an "unlawful enemy combatant" and empowers him to arrest and detain them indefinitely in military prisons. The law states: "no (civil) court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause for action whatsoever....relating to the prosecution, trial or judgment of....military commission(s)....including challenges to (their) lawfulness...."
On June 12, 2008, the High Court again disagreed. In Boumediene v. Bush, it held that Guantanamo detainees retain habeas rights. MCA unconstitutionally subverts them, and the administration has no legal authority to deny them due process in civil courts or act as accuser, trial judge and executioner with no right of appeal or chance for judicial fairness.
On July 21, Mukasey responded, and immediately the ACLU reacted in a same day press release headlined: "Attorney General Wants New Declaration of War Allowing Indefinite Detention and Concealment of Torture." It called Mukasey's speech "an enormous executive branch power grab....authoriz(ing) indefinite detention(s) through a new declaration of armed conflict." He asked Congress to redefine habeas through legislation "that will hide the Bush administration's past wrongdoing - an action that would undermine the constitutional guarantee of due process and conceal systematic (lawless) torture and abuse of detainees."
Like his two predecessors, Mukasey mocks the rule of law and supports harsh police state justice. He wants Congress to "expand and extend the 'war on terror' forever" and let the president detain anyone indefinitely without charge or trial. ACLU's Washington Legislative Director, Caroline Fredrickson, called this "the last gasp of an administration desperate to rationalize what is a failed legal scheme" - that the Supreme Court thunderously rejected three times.
Mukasey proposes lawlessness and cover-up, "but there is no reason to think that Congress will assist him." It "won't fall for this latest (scheme) to (suppress) its wrongdoing." Besides, the House Judiciary Committee is now investigating whether high-level administration officials authorized torture and abuse. Mukasey wants to hide it and is asking Congress to "bury the evidence."
The ACLU is righteously outraged by this latest attempted power grab. It rejects Mukasey's lawlessness and states there is "no need to invent yet another set of legal rules to govern the detention and trial of prisoners held on national security grounds, and the rules that (Mukasey) is proposing are fundamentally inconsistent with" constitutional and international law.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Responds
After Mukasey's September 17, 2007 nomination for Attorney General, CCR issued the following November 1, 2007 statement:
"Michael Mukasey is not fit to be Attorney General because he supports torture, illegal spying on Americans, and limitless powers for the Executive Branch." As the "country's highest law enforcement official," he's obligated "to enforce the law" - not make excuses for the government when it's in violation. CCR stands "firmly against Mukasey's nomination....Our country cannot afford to make compromises to our laws, our morals, and our humanity any longer." The Senate must reject Attorney General candidates who'll "undermine American justice and shred the Constitution."
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
History is going to judge the traitors in Congress harshly. This Congress is a rubber stamp for corruption. This Congress has ruined the system of checks and balances on the President. This Congress has taken us closer to the end of the Democratic experiment.
All of the Congress people voting to support these measures should be systematically targeted and removed from office by the people.
The former United States ended when the Republican and Democratic parties joined forces in a coup against the people.
May they all be followed and hounded for the rest of time for their treachery against the people and may their fortunes all one day be taken as they have sold out generations.
by
August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 442 comments)
on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 5:36:53 PM
Amen, bro. We must hold these people fully accountable and never forget how they have misrepresented us, beginning with the next election. Now more than ever we must urge them to vote with Kucinich for impeachment. It is not good enough to complain amoungst ourselves. We must call or write or email our reps and complain to them. Don't be intimidated. Stay in their face. Stick on them like mud and let them know how you feel about this dictator who has taken over our country. That or forever hang your head in shame by not jumping on this opportunity. We are running out of time to impeach. Impeachment is cause for celebration. Let's make it happen.
by
Nick van Nes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 110 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 12:36:45 AM
My friend, I "second" you. Thank you for all that you wrote.
Yes, impeachment is key. I just wrote a letter to the editor today, stating that we will NOT vote for any Congress member who a) backs torture b) votes yes for war funding based on lies c) refuses to impeach two run-away mass murderers and d) any Congress member who votes to usurp Constitutional freedom.
I added a very strong message to my letter:
I hereby indict any Congress member as war criminal who votes for funding of war based on lies, refuses to impeach, votes for torture, etc. Further, I ask officials overseas and City Councils and County Supervisors, to issue arrest warrants for any member of Congress who does any of the above.
May I ask that others please do the same.
And send out chain emails asking readers to meet with their local officials, and write officials overseas, asking for arrest warrants. Because with kidnapping sanctioned by Bush---and Congress----anywhere in the world, this is a security issue to anyone and everyone walking the earth. Therefore officials overseas must get involved.
Apparently teh system of checks and balances has to come from overseas. I hereby ask that we as citizens plug for that cause, and for the cause of local officials doing the same.
After all, Brattleboro VT issued arrest warrants for Bush/Cheney, other cities have written impeachment resolutions....so why can't this happen elsewhere?
The key thing to getting it to happen is to a) remind officials that the economy is at stake as we strike Iran (show Seymore Hersch's New Yorker article ) b) REmind them that they are paid to implement the public will, so it's not about their wishes or beliefs or agendas or what they support. It's about us.
Thank you all for spreading word abotu this strategy.
And please write letters to the editor about Kucinich's article of impeachment. Getting the issue of war based on lies on the public radar may prevent the strike on Iran. Because criminality does not like to see the light of day. IF Bush and Cheney really did NOT care that information was getting out, they would not have endangered Valerie Plame's life out of revenge. So obviously, contrary to what we might think, they both do care what we people think and know. That's why they censor the press. So....repeat: Criminality does not like to see the light of day. Bring on the sunshine! WOrk for the impeachment cause. Strategically smart. Thank you all.
by
Kathryn Smith (93 articles, 2 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 361 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 12:49:03 AM
I also believe that the feckless Vichy Congress is at least if not more to blame than the Bushreich for the sorry and doomed state of the great land of fear and police state that now goes by the name HOMELAND. Whether it is cowardice, corruption or blackmail this pack of jackals, swine and rank perverts are accomplices in the ruination of America and if the law of the land ever is reinstated then every last one of them should have their asses hauled in front of tribunals where they should be tried and convicted for treason and then either imprisoned in their beloved Gitmo or hung. The founding fathers I believe would agree with me on that one.
Total criminals, moral reprobates and unfit to hold ANY office.
Just my two cents
EE
by
Ed Encho (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 56 diaries, 391 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 5:05:26 AM
Again...re elect no one ! This is my mission. Remove them all D & R alike and seat new people who's campaigns are NOT paid for by big business.
This is the one "movement" that all the other action groups should be proposing...yet everyone harps on individual issues, many of which could be resolved more easily be getting people into Congress who understand the constitution and actually uphold it.
by
Paul Kruger (29 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 248 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 9:57:04 AM
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