American Civil Liberties Union on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (now law)

[groovychk]

Originally published at Twixel.net. You can comment here or there.

Here’s a statement from the ACLU :

(The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director)

“With his signature, President Bush enacts a law that is both unconstitutional and un-American.  This president will be remembered as the one who undercut the hallmark of habeas in the name of the war on terror.  Nothing separates America more from our enemies than our commitment to fairness and the rule of law, but the bill signed today is an historic break because it turns Guantánamo Bay and other U.S. facilities into legal no-man’s-lands.”

“The president can now - with the approval of Congress - indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions.  Nothing could be further from the American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions Act.”

—

Even if you disagree with the politics of some of the issues the ACLU supports - and I have my disagreements with them - what they say is absolutely correct about the law the President just signed.