taking liberties

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

from SLATE: >the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the New
York Times all lead with the Senate's approval of rules for the
interrogation and prosecution of terror detainees. The final vote came
after the bill's backers narrowly defeated an amendment that would
have allowed detainees to challenge their detention in court. The
House, which passed virtually identical legislation Wednesday, is
expected to approve the Senate's version immediately, clearing the way
for President Bush to sign the measure. ...

> Amazingly, only the LAT fronts a substantive account of what the
detainee bill actually says. The paper focuses on the provision
denying alleged terrorists the right to contest their imprisonment,
explaining that the restriction generated so much controversy in the
Senate because the "privilege of habeas corpus holds a venerated place
in English and U.S. law." The LAT traces Supreme Court jurisprudence
on the "great writ" and actually cites the relevant clause in the
Constitution. (Apparently finding a copy of that old document was the
sort of reportorial heavy lifting that eluded the other papers.) In
short, the LAT's lead avoids getting caught up in the parliamentary
minutiae and electoral politics that ensnare the NYT and the Post for
a second straight day. (The NYT is so lost in the weeds that its lead
makes the appallingly naive claim that "the president had to relent on
some major provisions" of the bill.) For all the strengths of the
LAT's account however, the one must-read piece on the detainee
legislation is the Post's thoughtful legal analysis, which the paper
inexplicably stuffs deep in the A section.

> The Post's piece immediately cuts to the central issue: The new
"rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of
terrorism suspects" are "far different from those in the familiar
American criminal justice system." The paper reviews all the important
divergences, from the acceptance of "evidence collected through
hearsay or coercion" to the rejection of "the right to a speedy
trial." Where does that leave the American legal system? The Post,
citing constitutional scholars, argues that "the bill pushes at the
edges of so much settled U.S. law that its passage will not be the
last word on America's detainee policies." As Yale Law School Dean
Harold Koh tells the paper, "it's not clear that most of the members
understand what they've done."<

This last reminds me of the scene in Star Wars Episode II, where Jar
Jar Binks (everyone's favorite character!) votes to give the (evil)
Chancellor emergency powers, setting the forces in motion for the end
of the Republic.
--
Jim Devine / "it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at
present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists,
ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it
arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict
with the powers that be." -- KM