As I read this, I believe it empowers the government to detail and try as enemy combatants any illegal aliens engaged in any gang activity that could even loosely be described 'terrorist' in nature.

And I like that a lot.

When Bush signs MCA into law,he will add
one of his "signing statements" which will allow him to ignore any part of MCA
that he does not like. He is above the law.He has writen over 700 signing statements,more than all other 42 presidents combined.Laws do not apply to
Bush/Cheney
RIP Bill of Rights 2000-2006

Jay,

You’ve descended into Ackerman-like hysterics. There’s no reason to “ignore” a law that doesn’t apply in the first place.

Let's see here...on the one hand we can trust Bruce Ackerman, a preeminnent Con. Law Professor at one of the best law schools in the country (Yale), or we can trust someone named Carroll, who, uh, not sure who she is. Yeah, I think I'll go with the genius.

Andrew
Cheney said it best, on "Meet the Press"
"The President is above the law"

Peter maybe if you read point 3 you would know what other liberals, who are just as educated are saying.

I mean, if you want to assume Ackerman's genius you might want to read the post first.

"(a) Purpose- This chapter establishes procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities ..."

That seems pretty clear. Sometimes, it's not necessary to be a genius, just be able to read.

I was a student of Professor Ackerman's at Yale, and while he is undoubtedly a very intelligent man, he definitely makes his fair share of mistakes.

I remember a particular instance in which he stated in class that an opinion in The Slaughterhouse Cases had said that only black slavery was prohibited by the 13th Amendment. I pointed out that he was misreading the sentence that said that the 13th Amendment was meant to prohibit "the type of slavery that was present in this country" when he attributed a racial component to it, since the opinion went on to say that surely if the "Chinese cooley system" was implemented in the U.S. it would also be prohibited by the 13th Amendment. As I noted, the sentence merely distinguished between chattel slavery and the silly "monopoly-as-a-form-of-slavery" argument espoused by the plaintiffs in The Slaughterhouse Cases (BTW, the plaintiffs' argument based on the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment was far from silly, and the Court was incorrect to have ruled the way it did). Ackerman later admitted he had been mistaken, but this was a case that he had read 100 times over many years and it took a student to point out the obvious.

So no, Bruce Ackerman is not always right, and it does appear that he completely missed the definition of "alien" in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Sadly, I cannot rule out that he purposely missed that definition, since he sometimes lets his personal opinions interfere with his legal analysis. (The same thing happened when Ackerman wrote an article claiming that the Senate was barred from trying Clinton for impeachment in January 1999 because the House had impeached him in 1998, which was during the prior Congress and thus the impeachment had lapsed; Ackerman did not notice that the power to impeach and the power to try an impeachment are two separate powers conferred upon the House and Senate, respectively, by the Constitution, and thus the impeachment trial was not analogous to the Senate considering passage of a bill passed by the House in a prior Congress.)

Andrew, tell the truth, you know that this law gives the presdeint the right to decide who is and who is not an enemy combatant, and that includes US citizens. Just because you post selections here and on RI future doesn't mean people won't read thw whole thing.

When Congress was debating the military tribunal law in September, some Americans were reassured to hear that the law would apply to non-U.S. citizens, such as legal resident aliens and foreigners. Indeed, the law does specify that "illegal enemy combatants" must be aliens who allegedly have attacked U.S. targets or those of U.S. military allies.

But the law goes much further when it addresses what can happen to people alleged to have given aid and comfort to America's enemies. According to the law's language, even American citizens who are accused of helping terrorists can be shunted into the military tribunal system where they could languish indefinitely without constitutional protections.

"Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission," the law states.

"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy [presumably U.S. military allies, such as Great Britain and Israel], shall be punished as a military commission … may direct. …
"Any person subject to this chapter who with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign power, collects or attempts to collect information by clandestine means or while acting under false pretenses, for the purpose of conveying such information to an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a military commission … may direct. …
"Any person subject to this chapter who conspires to commit one of the more substantive offenses triable by military commission under this chapter, and who knowingly does any overt act to effect the object of the conspiracy, shall be punished, if death results to one or more of the victims, by death or such other punishment as a military commission … may direct, and, if death does not result to any of the victims, by such punishment, other than death, as a military commission … may direct."

In other words, a wide variety of alleged crimes, including some specifically targeted at citizens with "an allegiance or duty to the United States," would be transferred from civilian courts to military tribunals, where habeas corpus and other constitutional rights would not apply.

For the full story on how today's Americans have betrayed the Founders,
go to Consortiumnews.com at http://www.consortiumnews.com

Raymond,

Every place where the phrase "any person subject to this chapter" or something similar is used limits the application of the law to aliens.

Pat,

You just pulled a Clintonian language parse. Yes, the definitions section of the bill does not confine the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" to aliens (as I stated in the primary post). But that was not the original complaint. The orginal complaint was that the President could use this law to suspend the Habeas Corpus rights of an American citizen.

So what exactly can the President do to a citizen declared to be an unlawful combatant under this bill? The answer is absolutely nothing that he couldn't have done BEFORE the bill was passed, because the bill only applies to alien unlawful enemy combatants.

If the President falsely accuses some ordinary citizen or political adversary in congress as being an enemy combatant and there is no habeas corpus, how can it be determined that he is not an enemy combatant? Seems like an effective way to get rid of political adversaries. There is no remedy.