Americans should be aware that citizens aren't immune from prosecution and harassment under this law. You can be labeled an enemy combatant if you donate money to any group with ties to any organization the government designates as 'terrorists'. Here's the language in the bill:
"The term 'unlawful enemy combatant' means - "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces)
So, if you give five dollars to some splinter organization which is judged to have some tie to some group they designate as a 'terrorist organization', you could be determined by Bush to be an 'enemy combatant', and subject to indefinite detention under this legislation even if you are an American citizen. It's not hard to imagine environmental groups, anti-war organizations, and other activists with no ties at all to terrorism, being harassed and detained under these provisions as part of a prosecution against some foreign entity or individual. According to Molly Ivins, "One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network."
The republican party and their president have declared war on our constitution, on our very democracy, as they denounce all critics of their ambitions, and bully Americans to let them have their way or else they'll cross their arms and do nothing; leave us vulnerable to the very forces their militarism is deliberately aggravating. There is no credibility in claiming a need for the ability to detain and torture with impunity; not in the face of their failure to account for whatever abuses Bush's military and intelligence operatives have already committed in flying suspects around the globe to find compliant or purchased regimes who look the other way as the CIA has their way. Where's the accounting for the 14 who were 'released' from CIA custody to Guantanamo?
There was a great rush in putting this torture and detention bill into law. Bush and his cabal must have felt the heat of the higher court's ruling on their tribunals and didn't think they could withstand a challenge to release these suspects outside of Gitmo. There's no question that this has to be rear-covering for Bush himself, who alone has the assumed power to tell our government's military and intelligence to commit these illegal abuses of liberty and due process. The only thing that's missing is a Congress with a majority which will hold him accountable, and not just serve as a sop to wipe Bush's nose every time he dribbles.
The other need for a rush on this bill is obviously the republican's need to hold onto the power they derived from five years of fanning the flames of fear that flashed from the 9-11 attacks. The torture and detention law republicans just passed, in every provision, enhances or expands the government's ability to intrude in the private affairs of American citizens and weakens the very protections of freedom and individual rights that are embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which they claim to defend. These constitutional protections serve to restrain our government and its elected representatives as they perform their duties, to act in a manner which preserves the promises of democracy and provides for free expression, debate, and advocacy, and representation in our political and legal system.
Yet, republicans are intent on destroying these protections in the name of defending us from those threats they have failed to counter using means which have sustained our nation through generations marked by grave dangers and risks in defending against Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and against the mischief of the Cold War.
There is a weakness and fear that the republicans possess which they want to spread to the rest of the nation as they hope to have us cowering behind their skirted flag. They fear the American voter most of all; those who would resist their hijacking of our democracy are to be intimidated once again from rejecting their discredited, 'protections' they are imposing without our consent.
Republicans have revealed themselves as the party of fear. Americans need to let them know that we are not afraid to exercise the strength of our vote, rejecting that fear in November.
"The term 'unlawful enemy combatant' means - "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces)
So, if you give five dollars to some splinter organization which is judged to have some tie to some group they designate as a 'terrorist organization', you could be determined by Bush to be an 'enemy combatant', and subject to indefinite detention under this legislation even if you are an American citizen. It's not hard to imagine environmental groups, anti-war organizations, and other activists with no ties at all to terrorism, being harassed and detained under these provisions as part of a prosecution against some foreign entity or individual. According to Molly Ivins, "One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network."
The republican party and their president have declared war on our constitution, on our very democracy, as they denounce all critics of their ambitions, and bully Americans to let them have their way or else they'll cross their arms and do nothing; leave us vulnerable to the very forces their militarism is deliberately aggravating. There is no credibility in claiming a need for the ability to detain and torture with impunity; not in the face of their failure to account for whatever abuses Bush's military and intelligence operatives have already committed in flying suspects around the globe to find compliant or purchased regimes who look the other way as the CIA has their way. Where's the accounting for the 14 who were 'released' from CIA custody to Guantanamo?
The other need for a rush on this bill is obviously the republican's need to hold onto the power they derived from five years of fanning the flames of fear that flashed from the 9-11 attacks. The torture and detention law republicans just passed, in every provision, enhances or expands the government's ability to intrude in the private affairs of American citizens and weakens the very protections of freedom and individual rights that are embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which they claim to defend. These constitutional protections serve to restrain our government and its elected representatives as they perform their duties, to act in a manner which preserves the promises of democracy and provides for free expression, debate, and advocacy, and representation in our political and legal system.
Yet, republicans are intent on destroying these protections in the name of defending us from those threats they have failed to counter using means which have sustained our nation through generations marked by grave dangers and risks in defending against Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and against the mischief of the Cold War.
There is a weakness and fear that the republicans possess which they want to spread to the rest of the nation as they hope to have us cowering behind their skirted flag. They fear the American voter most of all; those who would resist their hijacking of our democracy are to be intimidated once again from rejecting their discredited, 'protections' they are imposing without our consent.
Republicans have revealed themselves as the party of fear. Americans need to let them know that we are not afraid to exercise the strength of our vote, rejecting that fear in November.
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