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More Could be Deemed Enemy Combatants by Bill    [

    Rights Groups Decry US Senate Bill on Detainees
    Reuters

    Tuesday 26 September 2006

    Washington - White House-backed legislation on the treatment of terrorism suspects may protect them from torture but gives the United States immunity from legal challenges, human rights groups say.

    The U.S. Senate bill laying out procedures for interrogating and trying suspected terrorists that is making its way through Congress this week would effectively protect President George W. Bush and future presidents from judicial oversight, rights advocates said.

    "It takes the courts entirely out of the business of making sure the executive branch follows the law," said Christopher Anders, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

    The bill, which Bush was forced to negotiate with a group of his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate, would bar inmates at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from using habeas corpus petitions to have their imprisonment reviewed by a court.

    Habeas corpus - Latin for "you have the body" - has been a linchpin of Anglo-American jurisprudence since it was first developed over 300 years ago in Britain.

    Rights groups also complained that the measure would retroactively immunize U.S. officials from prosecution under the War Crimes Act of 1996 for interrogations that occurred before Congress enacted legislation banning torture and other abuses late in 2005.

    "It's a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card for top officials who ordered the torture and abuse of detainees," Anders said.

    Some rights advocates agree with the legislation's main architect, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, that the bill upholds Geneva Conventions protections against cruel and inhuman treatment and should rule out the CIA's use of severe interrogation techniques.

    No More "Water Boarding"

    McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said he believes measures like sleep deprivation, hypothermia and a simulated drowning technique known as "water boarding" would not be allowed if current language is enacted.

    "It would be very unwise for the CIA to resume practices that John McCain believes are now war crimes under U.S. law," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "His interpretation of the law is, if not decisive, then at least highly significant."

    The bill also imposes a new standard of openness on the White House by requiring the Bush administration to publish its interpretation of Geneva Conventions protections in the Federal Register, a public record closely scrutinized by lawmakers, lawyers and journalists.

    "That's a welcome return to transparency," said Hina Shasmi, senior counsel for Human Rights First.

    But Shasmi said the prohibition of habeas corpus challenges was an unacceptable assault on one of the cornerstones of the American legal system that would prevent detainees from defending themselves.

    "The question is, 'What are we going to do with the Guantanamo detainees?' And the answer is not a good legal outcome, not a good separation of powers outcome and not a good policy outcome if it precludes court review," she said.

    Rights advocates said a ray of hope has been offered by Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who pledged this week to fight to give Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment.

 

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    More Could be Deemed Enemy Combatants by Bill
    By Vicki Allen
    Reuters

    Tuesday 26 September 2006

    Washington - The United States could detain more foreigners as enemy combatants under legislation Congress will debate this week after a last-minute change in the bill, lawmakers said on Tuesday.

    Democrats complained that Republicans quietly made several changes to the bill defining procedures for trying foreign terrorism suspects after an agreement last week between the White House and a group of dissident Republican senators.

    "There are significant changes," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. He said the new elements could complicate efforts to push the bill through Congress before lawmakers leave this weekend to campaign for November elections.

    Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key negotiator on the bill, said enemy combatants would now include those who provided money, weapons and other support for terrorist groups as well as those involved in actual operations.

    Graham of South Carolina said the term "enemy combatant" also would apply to those fighting a U.S. ally.

    "We're making sure that an enemy combatant could be defined as something other than a front-line troop," Graham said. "We want to make sure that giving material aid and support to terrorism would put you in the enemy combatant category."

    Graham said U.S. citizens could not be deemed enemy combatants under the bill, but several human rights advocates said the language was so broad that they believed Americans could be detained under it. The Center for Constitutional Rights said even attorneys representing Guantanamo inmates could be deemed enemy combatants.

    The Bush administration has declared the detainees held at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most of whom were picked up in Afghanistan, to be enemy combatants who can be detained indefinitely.

    The bill to set up trial procedures for terrorism suspects - which Bush needs after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his original plan - is slated to go to the House of Representatives floor on Wednesday.

    In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans still were wrangling over possible amendments, and final action could be put off to later in the week.

    Senate Democrats and the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, were trying to restore habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo inmates to challenge their detention. The bill would strip those rights, which Specter said was unconstitutional.

    Specter also filed a compromise amendment to limit detainees to one habeas corpus application.

    Levin, who also is pushing to restore habeas corpus rights, said he opposed the new definition of enemy combatants. "You can identify anyone anywhere as an enemy combatant, and their rights would be severely restricted whether or not you captured them on a battlefield," he said.

    "We want those who would threaten the United States to be held and detained as long as they are a threat to the United States. But we believe in fundamental fairness too," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois.

    Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee had told Democrats that only technical changes had been made to the bill. His Democratic counterpart, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, said Democrats would not try to hold up the bill, but were demanding a chance to offer amendments.

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    Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro.