This can't happen to us, right?

Question

I can see that the detainee bill eliminates the right of habeas corpus for people deemed to be illegal enemy combatants and that they can be held in prison indefinitely without a trial or legal representation or even without knowing what they are charged with. And I understand that they can be tortured although what is done to them won't be called torture even though it can be horrible. And that this torture is not punishement of guilty persons but a means of extracting information from people who are accused but not yet convicted. Because what would be the point of torturing someone who has already been found guilty. But this could never happen to a US citizen, right?

Answer 1

That's one of the issues being debated about the detainee bill - that it can be abused by misapplying it to non-combatant civilians. And it depends on who you ask - if you ask the Bush camp, they'll say no, it can't happen. If you ask the opponents of the bill, they'll tell you it can and it will.

Personally, I don't think it's a matter of will it happen but rather, WHEN it will happen. Unfortunately, it won't be challenged in the Supreme Court until it happens to someone.

Answer 2

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

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Answer 3

"But this could never happen to a US citizen, right?"

why not. all you have to do is cross the wrong people at the wrong time. Maybe the Dems put up an ad the Cons don't like. Maybe a talk show host makes a joke? It's only a matter of time

Answer 4

Of course it could! The US gov't can do whatever it wants; if a person is imprisoned as an "enemy combatant" , citizen or not they have been stripped of all human rights.

Answer 5

Of course not, my little naive child. What would happen if you knew someone that was in a "sleeper cell" (without your knowledge, of course) and the government would find out that this person knew you- do you think that you would also be taken into custody?

Answer 6

yes it can. yes it will happen, and no, we haven't done anything to stop it. This scenario has happened before. Japanese American citizens were placed in camps during WW2, and lost everything they owned. Do some searches at wikipedia- civil rights-constitution-bill of rights, etc. you will be amazed.

Answer 7

There is nothing in the bill that states American citizens are excluded. Hence, it can certainly happen to an American citizen.

Answer 8

I bet the Germans were asking the same questions just before Hitler screwed them over!!

Answer 9

Anyone who can stoop to the kind of things you have described can stoop to anything. Start combatting it now.

Answer 10

Youve asked this several times, can ya maybe be alittle more original?