Republicans in Congress agreed to trials of suspected terrorists in the same court system, back when George W. Bush was President. Why won’t they agree to such trials now?

Under Congressman Sam Johnson’s system, if someone in the government with an axe to grind, or some law enforcement bureaucrat who made a simple error, accused you of being a terrorist, you would be doomed.

S.Amdt. 2669 to H.R. 2847 may be promoted as a measure to improve the security of our nation, but in fact it constitutes an attack against the very definition of what makes the United States of America a nation. If measures such as this legislation succeed, there will be nothing meaningful left of the USA to keep secure.

Why on earth would Senator Kyl be “really really troubled” by the idea that the Justice Department would need to develop its own standards for its investigations of American citizens?

By altering, rather than ending, the practice of rendition, Barack Obama, like George W. Bush before him, is making an implicit claim that he has the right to act outside the law. We opposed that claim when it was made by President Bush, and we therefore oppose that claim by President Obama as well.

In June, Republican Representative Thaddeus McCotter was noticeably upset at the possibility that an accused criminal would be given the right to a trial: “The Manhattan federal trial of Ahmed Ghailani again proves the Obama administration’s ideological refusal to face the reality that terrorism is a global martial threat; not a domestic criminal matter. The [...]

In Lamar Smith’s imagination, everyone who is accused of a crime is guilty, and constitutional rights are for wimps. Congressman Smith is betting that his constituents back in Texas agree with him, and will reward his blunt, get tough without trial, approach to the law.

Whether these bills, or new legislation like them that would prohibit Obama from moving forward with his Bush-style tribunal show trials, are moved out of committee will be the test of whether Democrats in Congress are willing to stand up for the Constitution or are content to acquiesce, and bring their political party in alignment with the Bush-era politics of fear.

It’s plainly stupid for the American government to play hardball with people who have been mistakenly imprisoned – people who never had anything to do with terrorism in the first place. Restoring the right to habeas corpus helps our government to finally get smart, and start focusing its efforts on suspects who actually have some likelihood of being connected to terrorist conspiracies.

The FISA Amendments Act completely unravels the fourth amendment to the Constitution. It makes protection from unreasonable search and seizure a mere privilege for those that please the government, not an inalienable right.