On March 4^{th<\/sup>, Senators McCain and Lieberman quietly introduced a bill that Salon Magazine\u2019s Glen Greenwald<\/a> calls \u201cthe single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act.\u201d<\/p>\n}

It is senate bill S.3081, the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010<\/a>,\u201d which now has nine sponsors including newly elected Senator Scott Brown.<\/p>\n

This bill appears to be Senators McCain and Lieberman\u2019s response to President Obama choosing to have the Christmas “underwear bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,\u00a0tried in civilian courts. And, according to Greenwald, it is also \u201cdesigned to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to U.S. citizen Jose Padilla\u2014arrest him on U.S. soil and imprison him for years in military custody with no charges.”<\/p>\n

This bill grants the president the power to order, arrest, interrogate and imprison anyone\u2014including U.S. citizens\u2014considered to be a \u201csuspected belligerent\u201d or a \u201chigh value detainee.”\u00a0According to the bill, a person is considered a \u201chigh value detainee\u201d if he\/she fulfills one of the following criteria:<\/p>\n

(1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda, or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate.<\/p>\n

In other words, an individual doesn\u2019t even have to pose a threat to be picked up, detained and interrogated by the military. Individuals can merely be determined to be of \u201cpotential intelligence value\u201d or come under the vague mandate of \u201csuch other matters as the President considers appropriate.”\u00a0After the arrest, \u201cThe High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent, within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.\u201d\u00a0The final determination of whether or not the person is an \u201cunprivileged enemy belligerent\u201d is made by the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General. And then, the so-called unprivileged enemy belligerent can be held indefinitely in military custody.<\/p>\n

Liliana Segura,<\/a> writing at Alternet, says\u00a0 \u201cThis is a defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Where\u2019s the outrage?\u201d<\/p>\n

The ACLU<\/a> has expressed its vigorous opposition to the legislation, labeling it nothing less than a \u201cdirect attack on the Constitution.\u201d\u00a0\u201cIndefinite detention flies in the face of American values and violates this country\u2019s commitment to the rule of law,\u201d states Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.<\/p>\n

The frightening aspect of this bill, besides the fact that it shreds the Constitution, is that it gives the president and the military the power to turn the \u201cwar on terror\u201d against politically active American citizens who may express dissent against the policies of the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 4th, Senators McCain and Lieberman quietly introduced a bill that Salon Magazine\u2019s Glen Greenwald calls \u201cthe single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,29,16],"tags":[1970,258,883,257,256],"yoast_head":"\n