By contrast, in Bush's system, there are no guarantees of either a speedy or a public trial. Secrecy dominates in a process run by U.S. military officers whose careers depend on the favor of the Commander in Chief.
Under the new law, the military judge "may close to the public all or a portion of the proceedings" if he deems that the evidence must be kept secret for national security reasons. Those concerns can be conveyed to the judge through ex parte - or one-sided - communications from the prosecutor or a government representative.
The judge also can exclude the accused from the trial if there are safety concerns or if the defendant is disruptive. Plus, the judge can admit evidence obtained through coercion if he determines it "possesses sufficient probative value" and "the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence."
During trial, the prosecutor would have the additional right to assert a "national security privilege" that could stop "the examination of any witness," presumably by the defense if the questioning touched on any sensitive matter.
In effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel "star chamber" system for the prosecution, imprisonment and elimination of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic.
Terror Fears
The Times editorial writers might also take into account the circumstances under which Bush is likely to execute his new powers. Imagine, for example, a terrorist incident or a threat of one somewhere in the United States. Amid public anger and fear, Bush or some future President could begin rounding up citizens and non-citizens alike.
Once these detainees are locked up at Guantanamo Bay or some other prison facility, they could be held incommunicado and denied access to civilian courts under the law's court-stripping provision.
It could take years before the U.S. Supreme Court even addresses these detentions and - given the increasingly right-wing make-up of the Court - there would be no assurance that the justices wouldn't endorse the President's extraordinary powers.
The Times also might want to take note of the curious provision in the law that would jail "any person" who "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."
Since the Bush administration and its political allies often have accused the New York Times of collecting and publishing information, from confidential sources, that is helpful to U.S. enemies - for instance, the stories about Bush's secret wiretapping program - this provision arguably could apply to Times reporters and editors.
This "spying" provision not only puts alleged offenders into Bush's special legal system but it could result in the offenders being sentenced to death.
So, before assuring American citizens that they're safe from Bush's draconian system, the Times editors might check on why these "any person" provisions were put into the law. For more than two centuries, the civilian U.S. legal system has handled similar crimes, including allegations of spying and charges of Americans aiding foreign enemies.
Yet now, under the cloak of setting up military tribunals to try al-Qaeda suspects and other so-called "unlawful enemy combatants," Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have effectively created a parallel legal system for "any person" - American citizen or otherwise - who crosses some line and becomes an enemy of the state.
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