VICTORY?

ENEMY COMBATANTS LOSE in United State Senate, but the battle is not over. Who will lose next?  The United States Senate voted to strip protections from detainees in Guantanamo.  Will we next see more naked executive power? [story]

The vote, 49 to 42, on an amendment to a military budget bill by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, comes at a time of intense debate over the government's treatment of prisoners in American custody worldwide, and just days after the Senate passed a measure by Senator John McCain banning abusive treatment of them.
If approved in its current form by both the Senate and the House, which has not yet considered the measure but where passage is considered likely, the law would nullify a June 2004 Supreme Court opinion that detainees at Guantánamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions in court.

SOME WILL SAY screw those guys, what does that have to do with us? Habeas corpus is the base of all our constitutional liberties.  As The Heretik wrote about in July in Streamline or Steamroll, the Senate is working to remove habeas corpus rights here as well.

AND SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE John Roberts will rule on cases supporting unlimited executive power in a time of war [Hamdan v Rumsfeld]  Whether a United States citizen can be declared an “enemy combatant” subject only to the president’s whims is certain to be decided sooner rather than later? If the Court rules for the president, what does that mean?

IF THE PRESIDENT SAYS you are an “enemy combatant” in the endless War on TERROR Everything TM, you are screwed.  Yesterday the Senate boldly struck a blow against “the enemy.”  We will find out soon enough if the enemy is us.

REQUIRED READING
DON’T HABEAS A COW? [Talk Left] Tinkering with habeas corpus is a dangerous thing. Today, Sen. Lindsay Graham and his fellow Senators told you they are only restricting habeas rights of  enemy combatants, i.e., foreigners. But on November 16, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a second hearing on S. 1088 (pdf), a bill that would gut habeas corpus rights for Americans. 

THE HERETIK NOTES we are not on a slippery slope here.  We have slipped down the slope and are in deep water now.

MISTER KAFKA IS CALLING [Hilzoy/ Obsidian Wings] As far as I can tell, it also does not allow a detainee who has been determined to be innocent, but who has not been released, to ask the Court to be released: if the CSRT that found him innocent acted in accordance with its own standards, then the Court cannot consider such further details as whether he has in fact been released.
Don't think this can't happen. There are people who are being held despite the fact that they have been found not to be enemy combatants. An example from the Washington Post . . . 

THE HERETIK WILL be watching.  No doubt others are watching us.

WHAT LIES AHEAD is a decision on the Hamdan v Rumsfeld case.  John Roberts as Supreme Court Chief Justice will have an um unique perspective.
[Emily Bazelon/Slate] . . . .an opinion that the 50-year-old judge joined just last week in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld should be seriously troubling to anyone who values civil liberties. As a member of a three-judge panel on the D.C. federal court of appeals, Roberts signed on to a blank-check grant of power to the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists without basic due-process protections.

CERNIG TAKES A DARK VIEW [Newshog] It's difficult to be sure - are the Republican powerful just suffering from paranoia and meglomaniac delusions or are they caLmly and coldly working towards a police state? Is it insanity or is it evil intent?

THE HERETIK BELIEVES sanity must be restored and evil fought wherever it walks.  Where it walks, evil kicks others down to a crawl.

ADDITIONAL NOTES
Michelle I Never Saw an Internment I Didn't Like Malkin is overjoyed.  Laments from Majikthise.

ROUND TWO [Body and Soul] But don't despair yet [on the Graham amendment]. This was a 49-42 vote, and basic rights are still salvageable. Senator Bingham will be introducing a substitute amendment next week that removes the part of Graham's amendment that bans prisoners from challenging their incarceration. We only need to peel off a few votes. Call your senators again, and if they're among the more crucial votes.

PAST AND FUTURE PERIL [Marty Lederman/Balkinization] This amendment, if enacted, would by its terms appear to eliminate the jurisdiction of the courts -- and thus make meaningless the habeas petitions at issue -- in pending cases, such as, most importantly, the Hamdan case the Court decided to hear this week, and the extremely significant Rasul cases on remand, which are presently pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. As Bobby Chesney explains in further detail, this would be a very momentous development, and would probably mean that most or all of the Administration's decisions on, and conduct regarding, detention, interrogation and abuse at GTMO, would be impervious to judicial review and oversight. 

THE HERETIK DECLARES IF NO ONE SPEAKS up now, no one may be able to stop this later

Comments

[Cernig]

Wow, great post, Heretik. Time for a photoshop of Mikado Bush and Lord High Executioner "Ko-Ko" Cheney? For they certainly do have a little list of those who never would be missed.

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list--I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!

Regards, C

[Nell]

I thought Roberts had said he would recuse himself from Hamdan -- or was that just the decision on whether to hear it?