Military Commissions Act applies to U.S. citizens
The Act has also been denounced by critics who assert that its wording makes possible the permanent detention and torture (as defined by the Geneva Conventions) of anyone - including American citizens - based solely on the decision of the President. Indeed, the wording of section 948b of the act appears to explicitly contradict the Third Geneva Convention of which the United States is currently a signatory.
In the House debate, Representative David Wu of Oregon offered this scenario:
Let us say that my wife, who is here in the gallery with us tonight, a sixth generation Oregonian, is walking by the friendly, local military base and is picked up as an unlawful enemy combatant. What is her recourse? She says, I am a U.S. citizen. That is a jurisdictional fact under this statute, and she will not have recourse to the courts? She can take it to Donald Rumsfeld, but she cannot take it across the street to an article 3 court.[19]
One has described the Act as "the legalization of the José Padilla treatment" - referring to the American citizen who was declared an unlawful enemy combatant and then imprisoned for three years before finally being charged with a lesser crime than was originally alleged.[20] A legal brief filed on Padilla's behalf alleges that during this time he was subjected to sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and enforced stress positions. He continues to be held by the United States.
According to Bill Goodman, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Joanne Mariner, from FindLaw, this bill redefines unlawful enemy combatant in such a broad way that it refers to any person who is
engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.
This makes it possible for US citizens to be designated unlawful enemy combatant because
it could be read to include anyone who has donated money to a charity for orphans in Afghanistan that turns out to have some connection to the Taliban or a person organizing an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C.
As such habeas corpus may be denied to US citizens. Jennifer Van Bergen, a journalist with a law degree, responds to the comment that habeas corpus has never been afforded to foreign combatants with the suggestion that using the current sweeping definition of the war on terror and unlawful combatant, it is impossible to know where the battlefield is and who combatants are. Also, she notes that already most of the detentions are unlawful.
The Act also contains the suggestion that unlawful enemy combatant refers to any person
who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.
Some commentators have interpreted this to mean that 'if the President says you are an enemy combatant, then you effectively are.'
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