George W. Bush has proposed legislation that would give his administration the power to lock-up ordinary Americans in the prison at Guantanamo Bay and throw away the key. In draft legislation prepared in response to last month's Supreme Court decision against the use of military tribunals for US prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Bush proposes to extend the practice of indefinite detention and summary trial by military commissions to include ordinary American citizens.
The Washington Post reports, based on leaks from those with access to the draft, that the bill would legalize military tribunals as decreed by Bush in 2001, and, for the first time, make US citizens subject to such summary proceedings.
The tribunals, "courts" consisting of active-duty military personnel under orders of the President as Commander-in-Chief, would have the power to impose death sentences based on secret evidence and in proceedings from which the defendants could be excluded whenever military judges decided this was "necessary to protect national security."
This morning's front page of my daily news included stories on: the war on Lebanon, the continuing heat wave, a missing Alzheimer's patient, and the news that the local baseball team is switching radio stations after 40-odd years. Oddly, nowhere in the entire paper will you find the news that George Bush wants Donald Rumsfeld to be able to arrest and jail you and then convict you in secret.
White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts - Washington Post
