From Andrew Rosenthal, the New York Times blog (apparently the NYT doesn’t think this deserves the front page):
“The Senate is debating the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a series of provisions that mandate military interrogation and detention for any suspected member of Al Qaeda, and authorize indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without trial. (The law is written so broadly that parts of it could also cover U.S. citizens.)
The provisions were co-sponsored by Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, both of whom should know better. Their excuse was that some Republicans had proposed worse rules. But the smart response to that situation would have been to block faulty legislation outright, not to make a really bad deal.
A deal, by the way, that Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said was hashed out behind closed doors without consultation with his committee, or the Intelligence Committee, or the Defense Department, the F.B.I. or the intelligence community.”
Several amendments to this section of the NDAA bill were voted on. From softening the U.S. citizen provision, to confining it to U.S. citizens abroad, to excluding U.S. citizens entirely, to striking the entire section from the bill.
All were rejected.
I just don’t know how to explain my frustration and anger over this. Your last paragraph perfectly summarises how this horrible piece of legislation passed… Is was “hashed out behind closed doors without consultation with his committee, or the Intelligence Committee, or the Defense Department, the F.B.I. or the intelligence community
It has been mused over here, that the era of representative democracy is coming to an end. Hard to disagree. When you see outrageous nonsense like this, it rather puts you in mind of the middle ages and the Star Chamber.
When foreign nations grab Western citizens accused of spying, we say it is outrageous, now when the West does the same, we are supposed to believe it is necessary.
Stalin would approve of this.