Mr. Speaker, this is how a nation that has become fearful loses its moral compass, its identity, its values, and, ultimately, its freedom.
It is ironic that the people who use the word freedom with reckless abandon, in everything from fries to a global vision, should come before the American people today advocating for the suspension of habeas corpus, secret Star Chamber tribunals, unlimited detention without review and, yes, torture.
I know, we've been told it's not really torture, but I am sickened by the quibbling, legalistic hair splitting on something so basic to our nation's fundamental values.
Have you forgotten? We are America.
Let me say that again: we are the United States of America.
We have stood as a beacon to the world. People have aspired to our way of life, our values, our example, our leadership.
We are told that our enemies do not respect the rules of war or the rights of their captives, but do you really believe that ``somewhat better than al Qaeda'' is how we should measure our conduct? I don't.
And now, with scant deliberation, in an election eve stampede, we are urged to throwaway our values, our honor, our constitution, and our standing in the world as if it were yesterday's newspaper.
Yes, we must be vigilant to keep our nation safe, but we must not stand by while the honor and values of our nation are permanently stained by this detestable legislation. It is beneath us. It is not what we stand for.
Benjamin Franklin once said ``they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'' He was right.
Perhaps if this administration had the minimal competence necessary to make us safe, we might have a debate about the wisdom of Franklin's and the Founders' commitment to liberty. But this administration has demonstrated beyond any doubt that it is not our values that place us at risk, but its own incompetence, and the willingness of a rubber-stamp Republican Congress to follow the President over any cliff.
What are we being asked to do here, and why are we being asked to rush to judgement?
There are many infamies in this bill, as others have pointed out. I will concentrate on just one.
This bill would allow the President, or any future President, to grab someone off a street comer in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, and hold them forever, without any court review, without having to charge them, without ever having to justify their imprisonment to anyone.
This bill is flatly unconstitutional, for it repeals the Great Writ--Habeas Corpus. Not a statutory writ, but the Constitutional Great Writ.
Read the bill. I know we're not supposed to do that in the Republican Congress, but, just this once, for the sake of our nation, please read the bill.
Turn to page 93.
No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
``Awaiting such determination?'' That says it all. Nowhere in this new law is there any time limit for making this determination. In fact, it could be never.
We are told that these procedures are only for those who the President has called ``the worst of the worst.''
How do we know they are the worst of the worst? Because the President says so, and the President, and federal bureaucrats, as we know, are never wrong.
Some people held as ``unlawful enemy combatants'' may be put before a military tribunal, but they need not be. They can be held forever without any hearing.
A person designated as an ``unlawful enemy combatant'' can challenge his detention only if he is brought before a military commission, or a Combat Status Review Tribunal, and only after the military commission and all the appellate procedures are finished. Then he can appeal to the D.C. Circuit, but only to review the legal procedures. The court can never look at the facts. That's on page 56.
So, let's review:
The government can snatch anyone who is not a U.S. citizen, anywhere in the world, including on the streets of this city, whether or not they are in a combat situation, whether or not they are actually doing anything, and detain them forever, out of reach of our constitution, our laws, and our courts.
It also says that a court can never review the conditions of detention, which is an elegant way of saying no court can hear a claim that the detainee was tortured. Ever.
Who is subject to these rules? Well the President wants you to think this is only about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Bad guy. Dangerous guy. Deserves to be locked up. We all agree on that one.
But it could also mean a lawful permanent resident. Someone like my grandmother while she was waiting to become a loyal American citizen, which she did, and which is why I am fortunate enough to have been born in this great country. It would apply to the relatives of anyone in this room who is not a Native American.
We rebelled against King George III for far lesser infringements of our liberties than this. This bill makes the President a dictator--for the power to order people jailed forever without being subject to any judicial review is the very definition of dictatorial power.
The President wants to live in a law-free zone. He does not want to be bound by the law of war or by our treaty obligations. He does not want to be answer to our Constitution, to the Congress or to the Courts.
If someone is in this country and he commits a crime, we have laws to stop him and lock him up. If those laws, including the Classified Information Procedures Act, don't work, we can improve them. That's how we put Zacarias Moussaoui in jail. Anyone remember the 11th hijacker? We caught him, tried him in a regular court, and now he's in jail.
Perhaps if this administration hadn't been asleep at the switch, we might have caught him before September 11th, and saved our nation from that terrible crime.
We could also hold people as prisoners of war if we catch them on the battlefield. That's worked pretty well in all our wars.
We can set up new rules that actually sort out the bad guys from the people we just grabbed, or who were sold to us by a rival group, as happened in Afghanistan. We already know that some of the people in Guantanamo have been there for years for nothing. Some of them have been released and some of them are still there. How does that make us safer?
And then there's torture. When is torture not torture? Apparently whenever the President and his team of legal scholars says it isn't.
This bill would write that dangerous practice into law.
It would also allow statements extracted under torture to be used as evidence. See page 17 of the bill.
Is it really hard, as the President and some members of Congress say, to understand the difference between legal interrogation and illegal torture? The people who wrote the Army Field Manual, and the people who train our troops, have never thought so. It only became a question when this President decided he was above the law.
Now the President wants to have us grant him immunity, in advance, for whatever he might have ordered. That's a neat trick, and it's in this bill.
Mr. Speaker, rarely in the life of a nation is the question so stark. Are we going to rush this complete repudiation of all we stand for through the Congress to give the Republicans an election issue? I hope we are not as cynical as some here seem to think we are.
There is nothing we are doing today that we can't do properly with some care and deliberation. There is no danger that someone is going to be released from custody. This administration has certainly fiddled for the last few years without accomplishing anything.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this time we can do it right. Let's try. That's the oath we took when we became members of this House. That's the responsibility we have today.