Olbermann: The Day Habeas Corpus Died<\/p>\n
[Stay tuned, Soon they will begin threatening newsmedia, journalists and other investigative dissidents with arrest, torture and charges of treason. Nazi criminals were prosecuted for the acts this new law makes “legal.” -Ed.]<\/p>\n
Crooks & Liars | October 18 2006<\/p>\n
Today, 135 years to the day after the last American President (Ulysses S. Grant) suspended habeas corpus, President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006. At its worst, the legislation allows President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld to declare anyone \u2014 US citizen or not \u2014 an enemy combatant, lock them up and throw away the key without a chance to prove their innocence in a court of law. In other words, every thing the Founding Fathers fought the British empire to free themselves of was reversed and nullified with the stroke of a pen, all under the guise of the War on Terror.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Turley joined Keith to talk about the law that Senator Feingold said would be seen as “a stain on our nation’s history.”<\/p>\n
Turley: “People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system.\u2014The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It’s otherworldly..People clearly don’t realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I’m not too sure we’re gonna change back anytime soon.”<\/p>\n