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H.R. 6054, The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (21 comments ↓)
- This bill has been mooted by the passage of another bill on the same subject or by other events. Check 'Related Bills' below to see if other bills on this subject have been passed into law. Mooted: 10/16/2006.
- This item is from the 109th Congress (2005-2006) and is no longer current. Comments, voting, and wiki editing have been disabled, and the cost/savings estimate has been frozen.
H.R. 6054 would authorize the President to establish military commissions to try unlawful combatants for a number of offenses including terrorism, hijacking, and the murder of noncombatants. The bill would set out the rules and procedures for such trials, including the process for assigning counsel and compelling witnesses and evidence, the rules of evidence, and post-trial reviews and appeals. H.R. 6054 also would amend the U.S. criminal code to retroactively specify which actions under the Geneva Convention would be considered criminal acts for which the U.S. Armed Forces or other U.S. nationals could be prosecuted. The bill would apply to detention, treatment, or trial of any person detained since September 11, 2001.
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Visitor Comments
conscious
September 18, 2006, 1:58pm (report abuse)Amerika kills for oil, then hangs freedom fighters. Amerika Amerika.
Henry B.
September 18, 2006, 2:00pm (report abuse)COnsciense, You had better pull it out of your a**. The people fighting in Irag are there fighting for you while you disrespect them and our flag. We should send you to the brig for your disloyalty to the country.
1L Law
September 18, 2006, 2:03pm (report abuse)Your summary of the bill says that it would make retroactive changes to the law and the Geneva Conventions. I think this might be an ex post facto law which will be struck down for violating the constitution. The constitution prohibits ex post facto laws and bills of attainder so that the government can't change the law to make an action criminal after it has happened, and can't direct criminal sanctions against speciic parties.
D Lee
September 20, 2006, 7:03pm (report abuse)Henry stated - "The people fighting in Irag are there fighting for you while you disrespect them and our flag."
No Henry they are NOT fighting for ME, they are fighting for this irresponsible, dishonest administration and people like ME are paying for it with their money and their lives. They are fighting so people like Dick Cheney can retire in mass comfort from Haliburton proceeds.
From the ACLU:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/26726prs20060913.html
"The military commission bill, HR 6054, sponsored by Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), mirrors a White House proposal unveiled last week and passed on a vote of 52 to 8. The bill would allow a person to be convicted based on secret evidence and allow the use of evidence obtained as the result of horrific abuse. It also denies detainees access to the courts, including habeas petitions. Furthermore, it would gut the Geneva Conventions and amend the War Crimes Act to immunize from prosecution civilians who subject people to horrific abuse that may fall short of the definition of 'torture.'"
Get that Henry? PEOPLE can be tortured, made to confess to X and later exectued without due process. You call that "American?" "Freedom?"
NOT IN MY NAME!
No Torture
September 20, 2006, 7:54pm (report abuse)It just goes to show how worried Bush is that he will someday be tried as a war criminal... now he wants the US to pay for his defense.
He has so much innocent blood on his hands.
Juris D
September 20, 2006, 11:19pm (report abuse)1L has an interesting point. I'd like to know how this bill plans to circumvent Ex Post Facto problems....
Steven
September 27, 2006, 3:12pm (report abuse)So are we now the terrorists?
Nuria
September 28, 2006, 3:57am (report abuse)I'm from Spain, a researcher on Terrorism, and I'm horrified by that new bill and all the Bush Administration's actions against international law and against the world. But at the same time, I'm happy to see your reactions here, but you need to do something else, not just words, please!!
Concerned
September 29, 2006, 6:37am (report abuse)President Bush is a dangerous man.
What next?
In other words
September 29, 2006, 9:52am (report abuse)The bill that passed tonight authorizes the president to torture people without oversight. It also grants him the right to name anyone he wants as an enemy combatant and thus able to be tortured.
I posted this on another board to hit the low points:
"I've read most of this bill...or at least the parts of it you can read without having access to a law library.
Two scary parts:
In other words
September 29, 2006, 9:52am (report abuse)1. The word "alien" is used in this bill to appear as though it limits the applicability to non-citizens, but this is deceiving. Power is not necessarily in who writes the law...definitions vary as to whether someone is an alien or person or lawful enemy combatant. Rather, true power lies in who interprets the law.
This bill gives the PRESIDENT and any subordinate agent he wishes (read Don Rumsfeld) to authorize the power to DEFINE the scope of this bill. As such, if Rummy thinks you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist. Period. Regardless of what the "definition" says.
There is a small compromise in this bill that requires the Secretary of Defense to inform the relavent committees in Congress as to who is being held and for what, and these have to be made public, but there is a loophole large enough to fly a plane through...the Secretary can classify as much of the disclosure as he wants. So basically, you'll see a name, age, where they're from, what they're held for, and a bunch of black bars.
What is scarier than that? Incredibly, point 2 is.
In other words
September 29, 2006, 9:53am (report abuse)2. Not only can you be determined by the executive branch to be subject to this bill, you would be subject to the elimination of your right to challenge the legality of your detention. Simply put, no court has jurisdiction to respond to a writ of habeas corpus. This is huge.
If you are not allowed to contest the legality of your detention, you essentially have no rights anymore. Your rights now flow from the govt instead of from the fact that you were born with the rights mentioned in our founding documents. In other words, the current govt is rewriting the founding documents to make itself (not "god") as the source of your rights.
There are provisions in US law that allow for the removal of citizenship because of certain types of behavior. Joining a foreign army, naturalization in another country, joining a terrorist organization, aiding or abetting a terrorist organization, providing aid and comfort to terrorists, etc. See where I'm going with this?
In other words
September 29, 2006, 9:53am (report abuse)Example:
The President, acting through his authorized agent the Secretary of Defense, says you, by attending a political rally, are "aiding and abetting terrorism" and have thus forfeited your citizenship. This could make you an "unlawful enemy combatant" under this new bill since no court has jurisdiction to hear your case. You are now stuck in a military commission.
Now lets say that you wish to challenge this decision as a US citizen, but guess what, you lost your citizenship according to Don Rumsfeld.
Now lets say you try to assert your basic human rights under the Geneva Convention. Too bad. This bill takes those rights away too."
There are some other bad points to this bill like retroactively making acts of torture okay (protecting Bush from war crimes prosecution), but the two points mentioned above are the worst IMO. Of course, there are some provisions that read like the PATRIOT ACT ("Subsection 2 of such and such ACT has been repealed") which could be much worse than what I mention here.
Gene Buffington
September 29, 2006, 11:09am (report abuse)Now we have become the bad guys. All you false patriots with your traitorous talk; it takes more courage to speak up against semi nazis than the simpletoness it takes for you morons to expect everyone to just go along
JS
September 30, 2006, 12:25am (report abuse)President Bush is continually attempting to evade the rule of law and is abusing presidential power. Since checks and balances in Congress have virtually disappeared, THIS COUNTRY IS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE.
Apokalupsis
October 3, 2006, 4:42pm (report abuse)Has no one here slamming the Act, actually READ it? It doesn't allow torture, doesn't prevent a fair trial, doesn't violate international law, etc...
It's apparent that many here have taken radical left-wing spin for "fact".
Debate me at : http://www.onlinedebate.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8011
Farney
October 4, 2006, 5:19pm (report abuse)I'll debate you right here, Apokalphsis. Youre full of it!
Steve
October 6, 2006, 7:28pm (report abuse)There's a lot in here that is weird, but the phrase "alien unlawful enemy combatant" is used consistently. That's the focuse of the bill. Alien is defined as a non-US citizen. I don't *think* this could ever apply to US citizens, that doesn't mean I like the idea of cute, hidden commissions but the bill is limited to non-citizens. That said, I'd hate to be a non-citizen who went to the wrong rally or got on the wrong mailing list. There are a lot of non-citizens (in the US) and I think the lack of habeas corpus protection for them is pretty scary.
Steve
October 6, 2006, 7:30pm (report abuse)It also expressly outlaws the admissability of evidence obtained through coercion (torture).
Anonymous
October 25, 2006, 10:19am (report abuse)passwd as Senate bill 3930:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:S.3930:
Citizen K
November 13, 2006, 4:10am (report abuse)Come now people, none of you were born yesterday, so I ask you to look around you today and take stock, for that which may or may not be \"necessary\" to protect us today runs the risk of destroying us tomorrow (all this and we still struggle to get people to the polls!)... Truth, Justice and other special effects...