Can a U.S. citizen be deprived of all access to a lawyer and family and imprisoned?

Question

for as long as a president persists?
The president's legal advisers have made it clear that it does not matter if the prisoner is seized on a battlefield overseas or in some sleepy town in the American heartland. And it does not matter if the prisoner is a foreign national or an American citizen.

The al Qaeda terrorist network is an evil organization that must be vanquished. But as we go about that task, we must not lose sight of what we are defending. Free societies do not "just happen." Freedom in America rests upon a framework of checks and balances that was designed by men who were steeped in history and political philosophy. If that framework is neglected, constitutional guarantees will become nothing more than hollow promises on pieces of paper. - Timothy Lynch

Answer 1

NOW WE CAN!

Called the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the bill abandons the Geneva Convention (formed after Hitler's atrocities in WWII), legalizes the torture of U.S. citizens, suspends all civil rights for prisoners and allows the President to declare virtually anyone to be an "enemy combatant" -- artists, writers, scientists, protestors or anyone who does not agree with the pro-war stance of the current regime.

It would also retroactively grant blanket immunity to all U.S. military personnel who have committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention. Such immunity would extend to present and future war crimes as well. In other words, the United States will now officially harbor and support war criminals. In the context of international law, the United States is effectively declaring itself to be a criminal state that will respect no international law.

Just as frighteningly, the new Act would utterly nullify the courts and make it illegal for the judicial branch of government to interfere with the imprisonment and torture of anyone, thus affecting a dangerous power shift from the judicial branch of government to the executive branch.

Hitler followed the same strategy in centralizing his own power, and by nullifying the courts while taking over the media, he was able to propagandize his war, arrest all dissenters, and concentrate power in his own hands. The ultimate result was an unjust war and a humanitarian disaster that haunts the world to this day.

The United States is now firmly on the same path. These are dark times for our nation, and future historians will no doubt look upon this historic vote as the trigger that thrust the United States into a full-fledged police state, complete with secret arrests, government spying on citizens, and the mysterious "disappearance" of those who dared to speak out against the dictator.
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this too!
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Answer 2

The bill does not legalize coercion, it allows testimony obtain through the use of coercion prior to a certain date (can't remember the date off the top of my head, but it's in the past) to be admissible in court. This does NOT legalize torture, it is just someone who didn't like the bill bending it a bit. "Torture Is Allowed" gets better ratings than "If Someone Was Coerced a While Ago Into Saying Something, It Might Be Admissible, But Coercion Is Not Permitted And Use Will Still Be Punished". The first headline uses up less page space and ink too.

Answer 3

A US citizen cannot be treated this way, unless that person has betrayed this country. A terrorist however; is not a citizen and should be treated like what he is. The softtail liberals would rather that the terrorists be treated like citizens and given a room at the waldorf. We cannot afford to treat captured terrorists like royalty. They need to be isolated and interrogated. While liberals are trying to get citizens rights for these murderers, they are thinking how they would love to cut your throat. You can't rehabilitate these people and make US citizens out of them. They don't deserve the same rights as citizens because they don't abide by our constitution.

Answer 4

the comparable Patriotic Act and FISA bill to assist President Bush would be powered into the palms of President Obama. Does that make you experience comfortable or furnish a feeling of reservations that no President could desire to have the properly suited to supersede the U. S. Constitutional Rights of its electorate.

Answer 5

I don't care about foreign nationals I think the government will have the preponderance of the evidence when it comes to US citizens.

Answer 6

as of current US policy, yes. 230 years of democracy down the drain.

Answer 7

I was trying to remember if it was Neitschze who wrote,"When we fight monsters,we must be careful not to become monsters ourselves".

Answer 8

soulsearch speaks my facts found as welll...........the answer is yes