Not So Instant Karma: SCOTUS Style
John Lennon warned us that Instant Karma was gonna get us. Unfortunately Karma is not always instant, but Karma does seem to be persistent, if not instant. As we have watched the President and his Administration grab more and more power and abuse and ignore the Constitution of the United States in the name of fighting terrorism, it has been hard to imagine that Karma was going to ever catch up to these guys. What with Congress not doing its job and refusing to conduct oversight hearings into the Administrations activities, specifically the “war on terror”, their secret prisons, their new classifications of prisoners (“illegal combatants”), and their flaunting of the Geneva Conventions. Our last branch of government was the judicial, and the Supreme Court has been slanted toward the NeoConservative, Corporate-Purchased Right. So us Karma fans weren’t expecting much from the same Supreme Court that proclaimed George W President.
But hold the presses. The Supreme Court has recently told the White House that they do not have the authority to capture, imprison, try, sentence and execute people all on their own with no oversight. The Justices seem to think that the Presidents “military commissions” offer limited protections for the rights of the accused, violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the basic provisions of Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions. And this is the real kicker, apparently way back in January of 2002 several State Department lawyers sent a memo to the Justice Department and the White House warning them that the handling and treatment of prisoners planned by the Administration would be illegal and would create a backlash from US courts and overseas governments.
Newsweek got a copy of the memo. You can read about it here. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13773997/site/newsweek/)
The hard nosed NeoCons, especially in the Vice President’s office, ignored the warnings and claimed that the President has “virtually unlimited powers to defend the nation” in time of “war”, and they kept saying that Congress had given them a blank check after 911. But the Supreme Court says, NO:
“Now other antiterror programs that the president has justified by invoking the same congressional resolution might be vulnerable to serious legal challenge. Some legal scholars and current and former administration officials believe the case could undermine the secret foreign detention centers and the NSA eavesdropping program, two cornerstones of the terror war. "This is an extremely damaging decision for presidential power," says a former senior administration lawyer, who asked for anonymity owing to his intimate involvement in the legal wrangling over prisoner treatment. "And it was largely a self-inflicted wound." The bitter irony: an administration determined to expand executive power may have caused a serious contraction.” – Newsweek
Cheney’s office wants Congress to expressly give the President the powers that the Court has rejected. It will be a sad day if Congress rubberstamps illegal detentions and torture. But sources close to the White House say the ruling has them nervous.
Maybe Karma will finally catch up with this gang of thieves?
But hold the presses. The Supreme Court has recently told the White House that they do not have the authority to capture, imprison, try, sentence and execute people all on their own with no oversight. The Justices seem to think that the Presidents “military commissions” offer limited protections for the rights of the accused, violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the basic provisions of Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions. And this is the real kicker, apparently way back in January of 2002 several State Department lawyers sent a memo to the Justice Department and the White House warning them that the handling and treatment of prisoners planned by the Administration would be illegal and would create a backlash from US courts and overseas governments.
Newsweek got a copy of the memo. You can read about it here. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13773997/site/newsweek/)
The hard nosed NeoCons, especially in the Vice President’s office, ignored the warnings and claimed that the President has “virtually unlimited powers to defend the nation” in time of “war”, and they kept saying that Congress had given them a blank check after 911. But the Supreme Court says, NO:
“Now other antiterror programs that the president has justified by invoking the same congressional resolution might be vulnerable to serious legal challenge. Some legal scholars and current and former administration officials believe the case could undermine the secret foreign detention centers and the NSA eavesdropping program, two cornerstones of the terror war. "This is an extremely damaging decision for presidential power," says a former senior administration lawyer, who asked for anonymity owing to his intimate involvement in the legal wrangling over prisoner treatment. "And it was largely a self-inflicted wound." The bitter irony: an administration determined to expand executive power may have caused a serious contraction.” – Newsweek
Cheney’s office wants Congress to expressly give the President the powers that the Court has rejected. It will be a sad day if Congress rubberstamps illegal detentions and torture. But sources close to the White House say the ruling has them nervous.
Maybe Karma will finally catch up with this gang of thieves?
posted by Jay Larsen at 12:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home