The U.S. Senate just legalized secret evidence, torture and jailing anyone forever without trial as a cheap political gimmick for the November elections. This is America’s TADA:

The Senate today rejected an amendment to a bill creating a new system for interrogating and trying terror suspects that would have guaranteed such suspects access to the courts to challenge their imprisonment…

“What this bill would do is take our civilization back 900 years,” to before the adoption of the writ of habeus corpus in medieval England…

… the bill as written would allow the executive branch to hold any lawful immigrant in the United States indefinitely without charge. “We are about to put the darkest blot on the conscience of the nation,” he said, charging that the push for quick passage was purely for political gain…

The action set the stage for final passage of the bill, which was approved on Wednesday by the House of Representatives. [Link]

The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, commonly known as TADA, was an Indian law active between 1985 and 1995… It was allowed to lapse in 1995… due to widespread allegations of abuse. [Link]

Habeas corpus has never before been suspended nationwide: The U.S. will be able to jail anyone indefinitely without charge

Habeas corpus was suspended on April 27, 1861, during the American Civil War by President Lincoln in Maryland and parts of midwestern states.. in response to riots, local militia actions… His action was challenged in court and overturned… In the early 1870s, President Grant suspended habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina, as part of federal civil rights action against the Ku Klux Klan… [Link]

India has twice suspended habeas corpus, the right to challenge your arrest — critical for anyone arrested by mistake. Neither time was nationwide, but both led to gross human rights violations:

“During [Indira Gandhi's] emergency, some local officials arbitrarily used the suspension of habeas corpus and other rights to arrest or harass whomever they chose…” [Link]

March 1988: Parliament passes the 59th amendment to the Indian Constitution, providing for the declaration of a state of emergency in Punjab… [allowing] for the suspension of… habeas corpus, freedoms of speech and association… [Link]

The Bill of Rights will soon be contradicted:

Fifth Amendment: No person shall… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law… [Link]

Sixth Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right… to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him… [Link]

The ‘opposition’ party was happy to go along for the fall elections…

Senate Democrats did allow a vote to go forward, escaping criticism that they were obstructing the measure, and thus denying Republicans a potential political hammer. [Link]

Many legislators had only a shaky understanding of what was in the Senate bill since its provisions were still being revised, after consultation with the White House, Tuesday night… “This thing is so spiked with politics. The rush is purely political and for no other reason…”

Leahy recounted that his weak-kneed Democratic colleagues also argue, “‘We have to go along with it because we’ll never be able to explain it back home.’” [Link]

… while the ‘party of freedom’ dismantled the absolute cornerstone of liberty in the U.S., the right to not be arrested arbitrarily. In one fell stroke, these un-American Commie sissies have turned the legal framework of America into the legal framework of Stalin’s Russia.

This bill subverts the whole point of America, the reason why the United States was founded in the first place. Having never donned combat boots in the defense of America, these fake patriots are eager to emulate their dictator idols.

The republic has been fundamentally changed today. Oh yes, freedom is on the march.

Others are seething about this abomination:

… this law allows the president to detain any US citizen in the United States and hold him or her without trial forever. All the president needs to do is find that you are an ‘enemy combatant’. And it’s entirely his call…. the entire criminal justice system… becomes discretionary in the hands of the president. [Talking Points Memo]

There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness [versus] having the American people… legalize that behavior… Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining powers of tyranny — one of the very powers this country was founded in order to prevent. [Glenn Greenwald]

What’s new is that in this war, enemy combatants have been designated as such not just on the battlefield - but anywhere in the world… What’s new is that this war is forever… What’s also new is that torture is now allowed… what’s also new is that an enemy combatant may or may not be an American citizen. [Andrew Sullivan]

… they can detain you without charges indefinitely… “disappear” and torture you. This is not just restricted to aliens or foreigners, but applies to U.S. citizens as well… We are all at potential risk.

This is a thinly-veiled military dictatorship. Al Qaeda’s aim of gutting liberty is shared by the president

– Andrew Sullivan

Whatever else this is, it is not a constitutional democracy. It is a thinly-veiled military dictatorship… al Qaeda is winning battles every week now. And they are winning them because their aim of gutting Western liberty is shared by the president of the United States. [Andrew Sullivan]

… [the bill] authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial… They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison… We are not dealing with hypothetical abuses. The president has already subjected a citizen to military confinement…

… it is by no means clear that the present Supreme Court will protect the Bill of Rights. The Korematsu case — upholding the military detention of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II — has never been explicitly overruled… congressional support of presidential power will make it much easier to extend the Korematsu decision to future mass [arrests]. [LA Times]

Last time Congress rubber-stamped a major terrorism-related law no one had bothered to read in the first place, we got the [Fascist] Act…

For the five years since 9/11, we have been in the dark… That was a shame on this president… Now we are affirmatively asking to be left in the dark. Instead of torture we were unaware of, we are sanctioning torture we’ll never hear about. Instead of detainees we didn’t care about, we are authorizing detentions we’ll never know about. [Slate]

A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal…

Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads… Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts… [NY Times]

Under the Sedition Act, anyone “opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States” could be imprisoned for up to two years. It was also illegal to “write, print, utter, or publish” anything critical of the president or Congress… over the following years, Congress repeatedly apologized for, or voted recompense to victims of, the Alien and Sedition Acts. [Wikipedia]

Patrick Henry: Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty?… Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. [Link via Greenwald]

The minute it dawns on the GOP that they’ve given powers of indefinite detention to President Clinton II or some other Democrat, they will suddenly rediscover why overweening executive power is bad, and at that point there will be partisan agreement to repeal this bill or at least amend away its worst aspects. [Jeff Smith]