The U.S. Senate jumped on board with the U.S. House of Representatives and the Bush administration last night, voting to put in place “extraordinary limits on defendants’ traditional rights in the courtroom” in the cases of suspected terrorists, as the Washington Post reports.
The Senate approved the bill by a margin of 65 to 34, with 12 Democrats voting in favor of the bill, and only Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island voting against it on the Republican side. When signed into law, the new bill will officially reclassify suspected terrorists as “unlawful enemy combatants,” effectively stripping them of habeas corpus, while preventing interrogators from reinterpreting the U.S.’s obligations in its treatment of detainees under the Geneva Conventions.
Amid a general atmosphere of resignation in the blogosphere — most claim to have anticipated the results — bloggers’ reactions to the news range from triumphant glee to cynicism and dejectedness.
“I’ve seen some people calling this an abolition of habeas corpus, but as I understand it, habeas is suspended only with regard to non-citizens,” writes Instapundit. “This removes a key danger of abuse, since the potential politically-motivated abuses that are most worrisome involve U.S. citizens, not aliens. And Congress quite explicitly has the Constitutional power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, though whether this counts as a ‘suspension’ of the writ is open for debate.”
The debate is indeed an open one, and many would argue that human rights should extend to all mankind, not just to U.S. citizens.
“[I]nstead of not just suspending, but eliminating, the right of habeas corpus, the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own detention, we could have given the accused one chance — one single chance — to ask the government why they are being held and what they are being charged with,” protests Davebo on Balloon Juice. “But politics won today. Politics won. The Administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.”
Others viewed the news as more of a political gesture than anything else, drawing associations with the upcoming midterm elections.
“Notwithstanding the wide margin by which the legislation passed, most news coverage I’ve seen has focused on the dissenters’ objections to the statute, not on the strong grounds for the act that gained it large majorities in both the House and the Senate,” observes legal pundit John Hinderaker at Power Line. “I haven’t seen a roll call yet, but I’d guess that Democrats who voted for the bill will be strongly correlated with Democrats who are up for re-election.”
Adds Hinderaker: “It is a sobering thought that if the Democrats were in charge of either house of Congress, it would probably be impossible to enact the most basic legislation relating to the detention, interrogation and disposition of terrorists.”
“Sobering, yeah John,” the Inactivist fires back. “While you, you shill, are drunk on the thought that your Leader may now torture and lock people — including citizens — up in gulags as he sees fit.”
“So let me get this straight: The Democrats give up the chance at filibustering one of the worst bills in recent memory because they were afraid that the president would paint them as soft on terrorism,” grumbles Balkinization. “After the bill passes, the president plans to paint them as soft on terrorism. What a spineless, worthless lot the Democrats in the Senate are. They deserve every lost Senate and House seat that comes from this.”
The Strata-Sphere sees things similarly, but delights in its implications: “I have been smiling all day because the Dems have decided to side with the terrorists and protect their rights in the middle of a life and death struggle. Nothing can kill an election like rooting for more chances for more 9/11s. And those Democrats dumb enough (or deranged enough by Bush Derangement Syndrome — BDS) are in for a media blitz the likes we have never seen.”
Correction: The above post has been changed to reflect that the Senate-approved bill will not strip detainees of POW protections provided by the Geneva Conventions, as was originally noted.
Mark Boyer was a CJR intern.