Wednesday Morning Readings

All About The Torture Bill

• President Bush this morning proudly signed into law a bill that critics consider one of the most un-American in the nation's long history. (WP)
• Hello darkness my old friend (Crooks & Liars)
• Q Do you expect this law to end up back in the Supreme Court --
  MR. SNOW: No. I mean, our legal team spent a great deal of time working hard on this. One of the reasons you didn't have, for instance, a signing statement is that we think it all passed constitutional muster. And the people who worked on it have worked very hard. So we'll see. (WH)
• The bill Mr. Bush signed today came in response to a Supreme Court ruling, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that invalidated the system of military commissions that Mr. Bush had set up for trying terror suspects, saying they required Congressional authorization. (NY)
• The bill also eliminates some rights common in military and civilian courts. For example, the commission would be allowed to consider hearsay evidence so long as a judge determined it was reliable. Hearsay is barred from civilian courts. (WashingtonTimes)
• 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." (ACLU)
• Mr. Bush's authorization of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will trigger a barrage of challenges asking judges to strike down the law as illegal, unconstitutional, or both. And it has sparked a heated debate among legal scholars and lawmakers. (CSMonitor)
• Why the Military Commissions Act Is “Flagrantly Unconstitutional”
  Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy On the Military Commissions Act, S. 3930 (Progressive)