DGDevin wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


Refuting one of your observations: governments have been listening
in on enemy conversations for a long time.

Bzzzzt! Sorry, no score. There is a special court set up years ago
to handle listening in on *citizens* talking to enemies real or
suspected, but announcing you just don't need no stinkin' warrant
from anyone even if a citizen is on the line is a different kettle of
fish. There is also the small matter that in order to hear those
conversations you have to collect pretty much every phone call and
e-mail sent or received in the U.S., which they do. So in fact they
are listening in when *you* call or e-mail another true-blue (or
should that be true-red-state?) citizen, and who knows, depending on
what you say the computer scanning your message might find it
interesting enough to flag it for further attention. Maybe you
better stop singing the praises of sawed-off shotguns.

Correct. The FISA court.

However, the Protect America Act of 2007 (PAA) was signed into law on August
5, 2007. It removed the warrant requirement for government surveillance of
foreign intelligence targets "reasonably believed" to be outside of the
United States.[1] The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 reauthorized many
provisions of the Protect America Act


Refuting another claim, during WWII, we held literally hundreds of
thousands of German and Italian POWs on U.S. soil. (My state alone
had over 100 POW camps.) Of those held, thousands were U.S. citizens
(think dual citizenship). NOT ONE ever appeared in a U.S. courtroom.
The were not "charged" because they were not criminals and not
subject to the criminal law.

Bzzzzt! Another lost round. If you recall (or even if you don't
want to) the Bush administration said captured Taliban or AQ fighters
were not entitled to POW status since they were not soldiers,
remember? Well, what do we do with terrorists? We try them in our
civilian courts and put them in prison, did it many times prior to
Bush being CIC. So, why didn't we do that again?

Because they are designated as NOT criminals and, therefore, not subject to
the criminal laws or the constitutional rights afforded criminals. They are
NOT POWs either (see below).

I refer you to the Quirin case where several German saboteurs (two of which
were U.S. citizens) snunk into the country . They were tried in a secret
military court and executed.


But then they also wanted to hold a couple of U.S. citizens as "enemy
combatants"--sounds kind of like POWS, doesn't it.

Er, only to the ignorant.

Does a citizen
who took up arms against his own country get a trial for treason or
related offenses, or is he a POW in which case he's entitled to the
usual protections according to treaties the U.S. has signed and
according to the U.S. military's own rules. Well? Which is it?

Neither one necessarily.


Nope, they just made up a new category--not POWS, not terrorists to
be tried and convicted, not anything--just guys we're going to lock
up for years until we maybe admit they were in the wrong place at the
wrong time and let them go. Or they really were combatants and they
go back to fighting us after we've released them--too bad we didn't
convict them and put them in prison for a couple of decades huh?

They didn't make up a "new" category. They simply used a completely
different one that's been around for millennia.


It's quite the bizarre world they built for those *******s, not fish,
not fowl, just locked up because we don't know what else to do with
them. Another lovely legacy of the Bush administration.

I agree the folks in Gitmo are not POWs. I also agree they are not
criminals. There IS a third category: Unlawful Enemy Combatant.

The conventions to which we subscribe define an "Enemy Combatant" as one
engage in an armed conflict who:
1. Wears a distinctive uniform or emblem.
2. Answers to a chain of command.
3. Carries arms openly.
4. Conforms to the general rules of war.

By implication - and by our Supreme Court's definition - those engaged in
warfare that do NOT adhere to all four definitions are, by implication,
UNLAWFUL enemy combatants.

They are in the same general category as spies, saboteurs, guerrillas,
fifth-columnists, Democrats, and the like. According to the general rules of
war, they may be executed out of hand.

The first unlawful enemy combatant we encountered was one Major Andre.
General Washington, after a perfunctory hearing, had Major Andre hanged
within three days of his capture.