One journalist's pointed question
broke habeus corpus teleblockade
Commentary:

Kudos to Kelly Evans, a Wall Street Journal columnist, for bringing up the issue of peremptory detention of Americans during the South Carolina presidential debate on Jan. 17.

The fact that she had the gumption to raise the issue is commendable. But her question does not diminish by much the fact of the enormous media brown-out on such a tremendously important matter. There was little or no mention of the reactions of Romney, Paul or Santorum in followup coverage. Broadcast coverage of the issue has been virtually nil.

To his credit, the hawkish Santorum stood up for the right of a detained citizen to reach out to a lawyer and appeal his detention via federal court. Paul of course is strongly opposed to the detention law.

Romney rejected the basic right of an American to resort to the courts if he is deemed by the Pentagon to be a bad person.

Here is the relevant excerpt of the debate:


EVANS: Governor Romney, when President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, he enacted a provision allowing him to indefinitely detain American citizens in U.S. military custody, many, including Congressman Paul, have called it unconstitutional. At the same time the bill did provide money to continue funding U.S. troops.

Governor Romney, as president, would you have signed the National Defense Act as written?

ROMNEY: Yes, I would have. And I do believe that it is appropriate to have in our nation the capacity to detain people who are threats to this country, who are members of al Qaeda.

Look, you have every right in this country to protest and to express your views on a wide range of issues but you don't have a right to join a group that has killed Americans, and has declared war against America. That's treason. In this country we have a right to take those people and put them in jail.

And I recognize, I recognize that in a setting where they are enemy combatants and on our own soil, that could possibly be abused. There are a lot of things I think this president does wrong, lots of them, but I don't think he is going to abuse this power and I that if I were president I would not abuse this power. And I can also tell you that in my view you have to choose people who you believe have sufficient character not to abuse the power of the presidency and to make sure that we do not violate our constitutional principles.

But let me tell you, people who join al Qqaeda are not entitled to rights of due process under our normal legal code. They are entitled instead to be treated as enemy combatants.

EVANS: Senator Santorum...

[Romney interjects a criticism of the Pentagon budget.]

EVANS: Senator Santorum, 30 seconds to you, sir. Same question: would you have signed, as president would you have signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law as written?

[Minor chatter.]

SANTORUM:

First off, I would say this, what the law should be and what the law has been is that if you are a United States citizen and you are detained as an enemy combatant, then you have the right to go to federal court and file a habeas corpus position and be provided a lawyer. That was the state of the law before the National Defense Authorization Act and that should be the state of the law today.

You should not have -- you should not have -- if you are not an American citizen, that's one thing. But if you are a citizen and you are being held indefinitely, then you have the right to go to a federal court -- and again, the law prior to the National Defense Authorization Act was that you had the right to go to a court, and for that court to determine by a preponderance of the evidence whether you could continue to be held. That is a standard that should be maintained and I would maintain that standard as president.

[More minor chatter.]

PAUL:  I think we are going in the wrong direction for the protection of our liberties here at home. They are under deep threat. The Patriot Act has eliminated the fourth amendment. We now have a policy of preemptive war; you don't have to declare war and you don't even have to have an enemy. We can start the wars, that's what preemptive war is all about.

Now with the military appropriations defense act, this -- this is -- this is major. This says that the military can arrest an American citizen for under suspicion, and he can be held indefinitely, without habeas corpus, and be denied a lawyer indefinitely even in a prison here.

Let me give you one statistic. You're worrying about all these -- all these -- where we're going to try people, where are they going to do it, we have to do it secretly, because our rule of law is so flawed. We have arrested 362 people related to Al Qaida-type operation; 260 of them are in prison. They've been tried and convicted. So don't give up on our American judicial system so easily, I beg of you.

Just wondering...
why Google's cached pages are no longer highlighted, thus reducing their value in quickly searching for relevant data. Am I missing some technical change? Why would Google reduce the effectiveness of its service? Or is some software program masking out the highlights?

I had no trouble with Yahoo's cached pages.

I don't bother to follow all the latest internet arcana, and so it's possible I'm missing some new wiggle. If you know what's going on, shoot me an email to krypto78@gmail.com.


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