The Right Way To Prosecute Terrorists
December 3, 2006, 9:23pm
A new law aimed at authorizing military commissions to prosecute terrorists has been on the books less than two months, and Sen. Christopher Dodd already is working to counteract it.
With just days left in the 109th Congress, the Connecticut Democrat introduced a bill that would take several steps aimed at protecting the civil rights of alleged terrorists in U.S. custody. Dodd said that among other things, the measure would restore habeus corpus for those individuals, narrow the definition of “enemy combatants” and prevent the use of evidence gained through torture in an effort to stem that practice.
Both the new law and Dodd’s response to it are the result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. That 5-3 decision in June found that military commissions then in use violated military code and the Geneva Convention.
Dodd said the court made the right decision and criticized Congress for moving to undermine it. He called it “a dark day … for our country” and “a major step back, to walk away from habeus corpus, to walk away from the Geneva Conventions, to allow for torture to be used again.”
Dodd vowed to resurrect the bill in the 110th Congress, which Democrats will control. “We shouldn’t let that law passed in October to stand on the books,” he said. “I think it was passed primarily as a political action — to try to embarrass people in the 2006 elections about who’s for battling terrorism and who isn’t.”
Categories: Podcast of the Week, Connecticut, Security, Sen. Christopher Dodd, Civil Rights
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