The military commissions law that deprives detainees of their right to contest their detention in front of a federal tribunal, under the age-old rule of 'habeas corpus', has been signed into law. It is already contested. Hours before the passing of the law, an habeas corpus petition was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of a Guantanamo detainee.
President Bush is exceptionally pleased with himself, noting that is is a rare case when a president knows he signs an act "that saves American lives". He was most likely thinking of the measures that will authorize what he calls "alternative interrogation techniques". The fine line between this "alternative" method and torture has yet to be defined in separate legal texts.
In case the electoral posturing was not clear enough, George Bush declared that he was signing the bill "in memory of the September 11 victims".

Sentencing Lynne Stewart, the famed attorney accused of aiding terrorists, a New York judge decided on that same day not to be impressed by the government's hyperbole.
The lawyer definitely crossed the line when she relayed a message from her client, the "blind Sheik" sentenced for his leading role in terror plots in New York. She had informed his followers that the Sheik renounced a cease-fire.
However, no one died as a result of her actions, noted the judge. Also taken into account: her life-long dedication to represent "the disadvantaged and the unpopular", the age and health of the 67 year old cancer patient, and the fact that she is barred from her profession or any contact with her former client.
"I am not a traitor", she said, pleading that she had let her heart get the better of her head. She is not a risk, assessed the judge.
He sentenced her to 28 months, pointedly disregarding official guidelines and the U.S. prosecutor's request for 30 years in jail - effectively, in Ms. Stewart's case, a life-sentence. Predictably, her supporters saluted her relief with a round of "The people, united, will never be defeated". Less predictably, the outspoken lawyer tried a touch of moderation, saying that she had been "humbled" by this experience.

Yet another inquiry is launched into abuses at Guantanamo, this time ordered by the Inspector General at the Pentagone, after testimony by a US Marine.
Sgt Heather Cerveny had heard guards bragging about routinely beating detainees. They stopped talking when they realized she was a paralegal, visiting the camp as part of the defense team of a detainee. She filed a complaint, and she is barred from discussing her sworn statement. She disapproves of the order, but will abide by for the time being. The military lawyer in charge of the case, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, has also been gagged by the military command. That leaves Muneer Ahmad, the civilian lawyer for the Canadian detainee, as the lone spokesperson on the issue. And there is no deadline to complete the investigation.

"Guantanamo is not a prison, it's a concentration camp" according to Thomas Wilner, a managing partner at Sherman and Sterling LLP, an international law firm, and the lead counsel for Kuwaiti detainees in Rasul vs Bush. His point: the detainees are not charged, do not receive a fair hearing, are emprisoned indefinetely, and are subjected to abuse.
He was one of the speakers at the national Guantanamo teach-in hosted by Suton Hall Law School on the same day that demonstrators took to the streets in many American cities to protest the new law on torture and military commissions.
Laywers, doctors, clergy, and military discussed the situation of the detainees, and the evolution of the administration's policies.
Colonel Dwight H. Sullivan, a Marine and the Chief military defense counsel, military commissions, was one of the many critics - expressing his personal view - of the past system, and of the new law. "We prevented a great deal of harm", he said of the military lawyers who "upheld the highest values of our country when those in government have not".
He underscores that there is no justification for stripping 450 detainees from access to the courts. Their possible "frivolous lawsuits" would not add a terrible burden to a national system that already deals with 2 million prisoners in its jails. Besides, he adds: "I am detained at Guantanamo when I have done nothing wrong would not be a "frivolous lawsuit". He also makes the point that the worry about "over-reaching judges" is overblown. "They have been modest", he says, citing judge Robertson who found that some Chinese Muslim detainees should not be held, but added that there was nothing he could do about it. (they were subsequently released, and resettled in Albania).

"The legalization of torture will define the Bush era for posterity, it is a new milestone in the degradation of American democracy", insisted George Hunsinger, a professor of theology at Princeton. Reminding the audience that a government that takes off the gloves will not put them back on, he insisted that torture is a moral and religious issue, and started a campaign to reach the active minority in every faith and congregations.

Only three days to go, before demonstrations to "stop torture and the Bush regime" that are planned in 175 cities, in 42 States, according to the "world can't wait" movement.
At a rally in New York City Monday night, about 500 people came to hear Olympia Dukakis, Malachy McCourt, Mark Buffalo (who also read a message from Sean Penn), and Reno speak of the need to "drive out the Bush regime".
A special ovation greeted a man that actually put his career on the line to stand up against torture: former British ambassador Craig Murray, who denounced torture in Uzbekistan. He reminded Americans that 500 million dollars were granted to the dictatorship under the rationale of the "war on terror", most of it going to the army and a police that literaly boils people to death in order to extract confessions. "Hardly any islamic extreemism existed until the US supported the Uzbek regime, he said, and that's the kind of stupidity that creates the terror it claims to be fighting".

The rally was part teach-in too, when Bill Goodman, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, detailed the law just voted by Congress on torture and detainees. It essentially reverses the victory at the Supreme Court, four months ago, that had held in administration in check.
"The new act goes even further than the administration did", laments the lawyer. And he sees the new law as only the beginning of a process of erosion of constitutional protection.
The definition of "enemy combatant" is applicable to citizens and non citizens. The new concept is "broad and sweeping", encompassing acts of hostility as well as material support. "It could be anybody who dropped a dollar in the bucket today", said the attorney, refering to the collection taken to organize the march.
His anger at Congress only increases as he explains the elimination of habeas corpus for those designated as "enemy combatants" - that is, the right to see a judge to make a determination that a person is charged with a crime, and that there is evidence to charge them.
That right has been suspended only four times in American history, and always in a limited manner, he reminded the audience. It has now been lifted indefinetely for those detainees.
Finally, he is no less harsh on the torture compromise.
"Only "grave breaches" of the Geneva convention are still punishable under the war crimes act", he warned. The senators and the Department of Justice do not agree, for instance, on the fact that water-boarding would constitute such a grave occurence.
"Congres swallowed everything the president of the United States fed it, said Bill Goodman. We can still go to the Court, and in the streets".
That's where organizers hope to see hundreds of thousands of American on Thursday, as they conclude they can only count on themselves - and certainly not their elected representatives, including those of the democratic party.

Leave it to the Court seems to be the democrat's favorite solution on topics that they might be principled about, but not to the point of disturbing the electorate.
It has been the general attitude on the death penalty: praise every limitation finally put in by the Supreme Court while Sandra Day O'Connor was still present as the central moderate voice; deplore the injustice of the death penalty enforcement, but rarely actively promote its eradication.
It seems to be the fail-safe option on the new law regarding the detainees in the so-called "war on terror".
The senators were happy to let a handful of leaders ask the unpleasant questions about torture and 'alternative interrogation techniques'. It should not require exceptional courage to follow the lead of Colin Powell, and countless military leaders, to demand that the United States do not separatethemselves from the Geneva Conventions. Ten years ago, the debate centered on the acceptability of intelligence provided by agents of regime that routinely tortured. It is now centered on the acceptability of the use 'alternative methods' by US agents - in spite of the fact that some of these techniques were clearly defined as torture since WWII.
Sadder still, this debate largely allowed the other crucial issue at stake in the administation's project to go unadressed: the roll-back of habeas corpus for the detainees of the "war on terror".
Denying access to the courts, even for a review of the charges, had been a goal of the rules immediately put in place by the administration, and offered in a republican bill after the Supreme Court denied those efforts. It remains a central provision of the new legislation - one that the opponents (some republicans as well as democrats) are now resigned to see "cleared up" by the Supreme Court. It is after all what Senator Chuck Shumer of New York deemed a "secundary issue", as is in his eyes the question of eavesdropping on Americans.

Speaking of eavesdropping, the congressional investigation launched in Belgium after Swift, the banking messaging service headquartered outside Brussels, gave the CIA access to thousands of its clients' communication, just concluded. It found that the consortium had no right to give out that confidential information on financial transactions.
Consultations between Swift and the Belgian government will proceed "urgently"... regarding the future. Apparently, no one will be held accountable for the past.