Americans, kiss your liberty good bye

[The Minsky Moment]

Looking at the law, it does not represent any change in the policy that has existed over the last 10 years concerning the detention of al Qaeda terrorists.

The statute covers only people who satisfy ALL the following characteristics:
+ they are either a member of Al Qaeda or an organization acting at the direction of or in conjunction with Al Qaeda
+ they must have personally participated in planning or carrying out an attack on the US or its allies
+ they must be captured "in the course of hostilities" as authorized by the AUMF

The statute provides, as the Supreme Court has required, that any such detention be subject to the law of war (i.e. including Geneva).

The law thus appears to be consistent with current detention practice and actually represents an improvement over some of the practices of the prior administation.

There is of course a big constitutional issue raised here that is the actual source of Obama's objections but is not raised by either the ACLU press release or Martinus.  The law raises very serious separation of powers concerns because it mandates that the Executive Branch must take specific actions with respect to matters traditionally viewed by some to be withing the discretion of the Executive.  That is, Congress is arguably trying to micro-manage the Presidents exercise of Article II war powers.  The legislation implicitly recognizes the problem by providing the waiver procedure in (a)(4) and by conferring some discretion and "outs" in the implementation procedures in subsection (c)(2).

[The Minsky Moment]

Finally, looking at the prior section - 1021 - this merely confirms that Congress has authorized detention of AQ and AQ associated bad guys under the AUMF.  As both the Bush and Obama adminsitrations took the position that this was so, all this does is confirm that was indeed the intent of Congress in passing the AUMF.

In addition, 1021 includes subsection (e) which provides: "(e) Authorities- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States."

Thus, the law also confirms exactly what Lemonjello said - it doesn't change the previously existing legal and constitutional framework regaring detention of US citizens, LPRs, or any other persons captured within US territory.

[Capetan Mihali]

  So do I have to kiss my liberty hello again?..

[Drakken]

So in other words, any fighter who either belongs to AQ or to any organization deemed friendly to AQ is now legally considered an unlawful combatant and thus stripped of both the protections of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war and habeas corpus in the United States?

EDIT: I'm not being cheeky here, I genuinely ask out of curiosity as I don't understand why legally this can merely target AQ by name and not cover, say other transnationals entities or even national from states in covert hostilities with the US, like North Korea or Iran.

[Valmy]

  So do I have to kiss my liberty hello again?..

Just be comforted your liberty has been gone for awhile and this law is just enshrining its current um...not thereness.

[Ed Anger]

  So do I have to kiss my liberty hello again?..

I tried kissing my liberty once, but I wasn't that flexible.

[grumbler]

So in other words, any fighter who either belongs to AQ or to any organization deemed friendly to AQ is now legally considered an unlawful combatant and thus stripped of both the protections of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war and habeas corpus in the United States?

EDIT: I'm not being cheeky here, I genuinely ask out of curiosity.

According to MM,

The statute provides, as the Supreme Court has required, that any such detention be subject to the law of war (i.e. including Geneva).

Sounds like such detentions are subject to the law of war (i.e. including Geneva).  The Geneva Conventions allow for trials of persons suspected of war crimes.

[Ideologue]

i have read this debate and after careful deliberation my judgment is for 11b4v. Marty has had his ass kicked by a drunk redneck who used to schlep a rifle for uncle sam for a living

in marty's defense i assume that english is his second language and he is a pollack (albeit a high priced one) so reading the united states code may be tough for him  as it is for many new american law students

additionally, my guess is marty reads the code like a lawyer from a napoleonic code jurisdiction and is clueless as to how an american lawyer would read the text given the federal constitution's applicability to all statutes and the body of common law jurisprudence that guides us in our interpretation of similar existing federal statutes... that is to say i suspect marty comes from a jurisdiction where the statute stands alone as a text (although he still loses -- likely because his english is poor) as opposed to reading the statute in the context of applicable extrinsic factors such as decisional law and the constitution

Yep.  This was why I was wondering if there's some other section where it says (not that it would matter in the long run, but it could cause someone some trouble) "Oh, BTW, notwithstanding Amendments IV, V, VI, VIII, and XI of the U.S. Constitution, and superseding any other statutory authority, if blank is satisfied, American citizens may totally be detained by military authorities forever without trial."

P.S. I've been misspelling "supersede" for years.

[Ideologue]

Thus, the law also confirms exactly what Lemonjello said - it doesn't change the previously existing legal and constitutional framework regaring detention of US citizens, LPRs, or any other persons captured within US territory.

I said it first.  Not as well, but I still want credit for being up at 4 a.m. to sleepily oppose foreign lawyers citing alarmist blog posts as authority.

[lustindarkness]

I did not even know we had any liberty left to kiss goodbye.

[Eddie Teach]

I did not even know we had any liberty left to kiss goodbye.

It's restricted to civilians.

[lustindarkness]

I did not even know we had any liberty left to kiss goodbye.

It's restricted to civilians.

[Valmy]

I did not even know we had any liberty left to kiss goodbye.

It's restricted to civilians.

I must say Lusti has been a shining example to keep me from ever being tempted to join the reserves.

[garbon]

Why? Does everyone who posts a story on Languish first does a thorough background check and researche of primary sources? 

Of course not.  That's why they usually qualify their conclusions and don't call people ignorant rednecks for pointing out their errors.  As I used to say on Paradox, you can be a dick, and you can be wrong, but you shouldn't be both at the same time.

Yeah that's when you go oh, the source I had stated it wrong. Sorry guys!

[Rasputin]

i have read this debate and after careful deliberation my judgment is for 11b4v. Marty has had his ass kicked by a drunk redneck who used to schlep a rifle for uncle sam for a living

in marty's defense i assume that english is his second language and he is a pollack (albeit a high priced one) so reading the united states code may be tough for him  as it is for many new american law students

additionally, my guess is marty reads the code like a lawyer from a napoleonic code jurisdiction and is clueless as to how an american lawyer would read the text given the federal constitution's applicability to all statutes and the body of common law jurisprudence that guides us in our interpretation of similar existing federal statutes... that is to say i suspect marty comes from a jurisdiction where the statute stands alone as a text (although he still loses -- likely because his english is poor) as opposed to reading the statute in the context of applicable extrinsic factors such as decisional law and the constitution

Yep.  This was why I was wondering if there's some other section where it says (not that it would matter in the long run, but it could cause someone some trouble) "Oh, BTW, notwithstanding Amendments IV, V, VI, VIII, and XI of the U.S. Constitution, and superseding any other statutory authority, if blank is satisfied, American citizens may totally be detained by military authorities forever without trial."

P.S. I've been misspelling "supersede" for years.

any legislation that has to contain the phrase "notwithstanding the constitution" is by definition likely doa

so i guess the answer to your question would have to be "so what if it did".