Information control, or, How to get to Orwellian governance

Blatham,

No matter what geprge bu$h atrocity you expose, ole McG will have an excuse for why he can do it.

One would think that even McG might become embarrassed at some point by the actions or lack thereof produced by his god and savior, king george, but apparently not. This case of self-imposed ignorance almost matches the BS that is produced by 'Dan' Coulter.

Oh for goodness sakes, McG. After Pat Tillman, after Haditha, after god knows how many other convenient untruths and coverups, you are going to accept that motive/rationale??? You guys are becoming a cowboyboot version of the North Korean "I believe everything the Great Leader and government tell me."

Easy enough to rotate press reps present there, that's done frequently. But in any case, what is more important, citizen access to what your government and military are up to or the added expense/trouble of putting one more Lieutenant onto press liason functions?

I really do wish you guys, as citizens, would gain some testicles.

I have stated before that I don't believe the press has any need to be involved in Gitmo. Why would I disagree with this course of action now?

We are in a war with people that will kill themselves to accomplish their goals. You can't fight a conventional war against people like that. We need to fight them on their level. I don't care that 3 of them committed suicide except for the fact that they may have taken vital intelligence to the grave with them. I don't care if they are kept in cages like animals, that's where they belong.

The military has a press office. Reporters can ask them questions.

At least at GITMO, they get to go outside each day.

You crazy Canadians are brutalizing those poor souls you lokced up last week. You ANIMALS!!!!


http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=871392006

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada may have no choice but to permanently detain foreigners it considers to be engaged in terrorism or to be otherwise dangerous to society, the head of Canada's Supreme Court suggested on Tuesday.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin made the remarks as the court considered requests by three Arab Muslim men, suspected of belonging to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, that it strike down rules that allow their long-term detention without being formally charged.

"What does the world do with somebody who is truly dangerous wherever they go. Is freedom really an option?" she asked on the first of two days of hearings."

GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT????

You Crazy Canadians!

Blatham, here is the documentary I had PM'd you about (albeit with poorer picture quality than the version I have).

Orwell Rolls in His Grave

I'd like to hear some feedback on this video from both sides.

thanks very kindly

McLachlin is no ideologue and has a fine mind. The rhetorical or deliberative question shes asks is sensible and responsible. But she is not quoted correctly above (full quote is in the piece you've linked) and, obviously, the SC now has to decide how to procede in matters such as this.

This is all quite irrelevant to everything that has come before so I gather you are simply pissed about my criticisms of what is going on in the US presently and wish to throw something back at me.

Regarding the Gitmo detainees...
If they are protected by the constitution,they face trials in civilian courts and face the death penalty.

If the Geneva Convention applies,they face trials by military tribunals and can be held for the duration of hostilities.
They do NOT however,face the death penalty.

So,here is a question for the left...
Do you want the detainees to get the protection of the US Constitution or the Geneva Convention?

They cant be covered under both.

Either one would be fine. But, as you know, your government made up its own definition and decided that the detainees would be protected neither by the US Constitution nor by the Geneva Convention. No protection. No laws apply. Do with them whatever you want. What a lovely attitude....

It would be fine with me to have them tried in a civilian court. Worked for Moussaoui. Shows that Americans, in general, are reasonable people.

I think Old Europe does not know how our government works in the USA. It is called "the rule of law"

Q&A: US Supreme Court Guantanamo ruling


Prisoners can now go to court
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay can take their case that they are unlawfully imprisoned to the American courts.



What did the Supreme Court say?

The overall ruling of the court was: "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay."

The court then described how this should happen. It accepted the argument from lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights that the Federal District Court in Washington DC (to which the case was first brought) does have jurisdiction to hear the prisoners' petition, under the "habeas corpus" law, that they are held "in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States."

What is habeas corpus?

Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase meaning: "You have the body." It is the name given to an ancient legal device under English common law (a mixture of judge-made laws, precedents and statutes). Habeas corpus was continued in American law after independence.

If a writ of habeas corpus is issued by a court, the person holding a prisoner (the "body") must bring the prisoner to the court and justify the detention. It has been a basic instrument under which courts in common law systems have protected citizens against wrongful imprisonment.

Why did the Supreme Court rule in the prisoners' favour?

The court was divided 6-3. The majority opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens and hinged on the definition of "sovereignty." He argued that, even though Cuba retained "ultimate sovereignty", the United States exercised, in the words of the lease from Cuba, "complete jurisdiction and control" at Guantanamo Bay.

Therefore federal jurisdiction applied there and "aliens, no less than American citizens, are entitled to invoke the Federal courts' authority."

The court rejected an argument that a case arising out of World War II should be followed in this instance (see below), saying that the two were quite different.

Justice Stevens quoted a predecessor on habeas corpus: "Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since [King] John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

The majority was formed by the liberals on the court, joined by the "swing" justices. One of the latter, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, said that the US government could not have a "blank check" even in time of war.

What did the minority on the Court say?

The minority opinion, on behalf of the three core conservatives, was written by Justice Antonin Scalia.

He based his argument on the "Eisentrager" case. This arose out of the arrest in China of a number of Germans agents accused of helping the Japanese after the surrender of Germany in World War II.

Their leader, who called himself Lothar Eisentrager though his real name was Ludwig Ehrhardt, had hired himself to the Japanese after the German surrender. He was sentenced to life in a prison in Germany but appealed for a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court ruled that this did not apply because he was an alien outside US sovereign territory. He was eventually freed anyway under an amnesty.

Justice Scalia said that the "carefree" court's "spurious" ruling on Guantanamo was a "wrenching departure from precedent" and "boldly extends the scope of the habeas statute to the four corners of the earth."

The consequence, he said, was "breathtaking." It enabled "an alien captured in a foreign theater of active combat to petition the Secretary of Defense." It brought the "cumbersome machinery of our domestic courts into military affairs".


Is this the end of the prisoners' "legal black hole"?


It should be the beginning of it, though getting access to the US courts does not mean the prisoners necessarily getting their freedom. But they do now have much more of a legal status and the courts might order a full clarification.


The Defense Department announced (on 7 July) that nine more prisoners will face trial by military commission, bringing to 15 the number of prisoners who will be tried in this way.

On 7 July, the Pentagon announced that cases would be reviewed by military tribunals. Why?


The Pentagon is responding to the Supreme Court ruling and is trying to pre-empt any criticism from a US court. It is setting up three-officer review panels to determine whether a prisoner is a combatant.


This is supposed to happen under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention which states that if there is doubt as to whether someone was a combatant, a "competent tribunal" should determine his status. The conventions have not been applied to the Guantanamo prisoners, so the panels, provision for which exist in US military law, were not convened. The decision to set them up now does not mean that Washington is suddenly going to apply the conventions but it is following them more closely.


The prisoners' lawyers are likely to argue in court that the panels are not enough and that the detainees should be properly charged or set free.


Whatever happens in the District Court is likely to be appealed in a procedure which could go on for many years.

end of quote

Woiyo: I do not think, Woiyo, that you are, as the erudite Mr. Blatham claims, "pissed at his criticisms". I think that you are pointing the gross hypocracy of the Canadians who should make sure that they are not going down the road of (gulp) totalitarianism.

Do you know, Woiyo, that the Canadian authorities actually WIRE-TAPPED phones to detect the criminal intentions of the radical muslims?

Imagine that, Woiyo? Wire Tapping? The next thing you know they'll be setting up concentration camps.

I'm glad you call it "the rule of law". That's probably what the Bush administration was afraid of when they decided to install the detention camp in Cuba rather than in the USA. Seems they didn't want to deal with "the rule of law". I'm happy that the Supreme Court's ruling was not based on the same reasoning.

However, let me ask you a question: What do you think would be the appropriate time somebody can be detained in the United States without a trial, or access to a lawyer, without protection by the US Constitution, or the Geneva Convention? A day? A week? A month, maybe? How about a year? What do you think?

NO..NO.. SAY IT AIN"T SO!!!! :wink:

woiyo

You ought not to suppose that anything at all said about Canada might offend me. My nationalist fervor is at about the same level as what I imagine is your level of lust to pork Mother Teresa's corpse.

I think you are evading the basic question here. Prisoners of war are held for the duration of the conflict - sometimes beyond. (The Soviet Union held many German POWs for a decade after the end of the war.) In the long colonial war in Algeria, France held revolutionary forces captured until the final settlement, and there was no question of trial. The same was true in British colonial wars. All of these countries then prided themselves as models of the rule of law.

For good or ill the Bush administration holds that we are engaged in a war - they have made that aspect of the struggle very clear. The problem is that the world has moved well past the old model of declared wars ny nation states. You may reasonably disagree with their interpretation of the suituation at hand, and therefore conclude that the detentions were illegal. However, it is simply not the case that the U.S. actions were a departure from international norms based on the rule of law alone.

Just pointing out your hyprocracy.

Clarify just what it is you are pointing to. Have I said somethiing protective of defensive about canada? Have I suggested others ought not to criticize Canada? Have I said Canada is innocent of something which the US is not?

The Bush appointed Supreme Court has decided to sweep away one more medieval remanent of our legal system, the rule that authorities must knock and announce themselves before entering a dwelling, even with a warrant. All in the name of modern efficiency I assume.

Court Limits Protection Against Improper Entry

I don't think Blatham is being hypocritical, but I do believe he is indulging in a few rhetorical flourishes here. I suspect he likes both Canada and the U.S. very much. I recently paid a visit to his former environs in canada and found it to be a delightful place, populated with pleasant people.

Welcome home.

And you are right, I'm very fond of both places as I am with many others as well. God knows where I might choose to live were all those options open to me. And, just as with citizens from all over the world who are surveyed on their opinions of America (see recent Pew poll) I differentiate sharply between Americans and present American policy.