At least one Democratic Senator understands why Glenn Greenwald and the blogs are so upset over the fake "compromise" by the "principled" republican senators.
Senator Leahy:
For weeks now, politicians and the media have breathlessly debated the fine points and political implications of the so-called "compromise" on proposed trial procedures for suspected terrorists.
[...] In doing so, we have ignored a central and more sweeping issue. Important as the rules for military commissions are, they will apply to only a few cases. The Administration has charged a total of 10 people in the nearly five years since the President declared his intention to use military commissions, and it recently announced plans to charge 14 additional men. But for the vast majority of the almost 500 prisoners at Guantanamo, the Administration's position remains as stated by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld three years ago: It has no interest in trying them.
Today we are belatedly addressing the single most consequential provision of this much-discussed bill, a provision that can be found buried on page 81 of the proposed bill. This provision would perpetuate the indefinite detention of hundreds of individuals against whom the Government has brought no charges and presented no evidence, without any recourse to justice whatsoever. That is un-American, and it is contrary to American interests.
Going forward, the bill departs even more radically from our most fundamental values. It would permit the President to detain indefinitely - even for life - any alien, whether in the United States or abroad, whether a foreign resident or a lawful permanent resident, without any meaningful opportunity for the alien to challenge his detention. The Administration would not even need to assert, much less prove, that the alien was an enemy combatant; it would suffice that the alien was "awaiting [a] determination" on that issue. [...]
Detained indefinitely, and unaccountably, until proven innocent. Like Canadian citizen Maher Arar. As the Canadian Government recently concluded in a detailed and candid report, there is no evidence that Mr. Arar ever committed a crime or posed a threat to U.S. or Canadian security. Yet, while returning home to Canada from a family vacation, he was detained, interrogated, and then shipped off to a torture cell in Syria by the Bush-Cheney Administration While the Canadian Government has now documented that the wrong thing was done to the wrong man, the Bush-Cheney Administration has, as usual, evaded all accountability by hiding behind a purported state secrets privilege.
[...]
The most important purpose of habeas corpus is to correct errors like that. It is precisely to prevent such abuses that the Constitution prohibits the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus "unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." I have no doubt that this bill, which would permanently eliminate the writ of habeas for all aliens within and outside the United States whenever the Government says they might be enemy combatants, violates that prohibition. And I have no doubt that the Supreme Court would ultimately conclude that this attempt by the Bush-Cheney Administration to abolish basic liberties and evade essential judicial review and accountability is unconstitutional.
It would be utterly irresponsible for Congress to neglect our oath to the Constitution and the American people and pass this unconstitutional legislation in the hope that the Court will ultimately rescue us from our folly. Doing so would only undermine the War on Terror by prolonging the legal limbo into which the Administration has dragged the entire regime of military detentions.
[...]
The Bush-Cheney Administration got a rude awakening earlier this year in the Hamdan case. The Supreme Court -- which happens to include seven Republican appointees in its nine Justices -- affirmed what we had told it all along: when the terrorists brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11, they did not bring down the rule of law on which our system of Government is founded. They did not supplant our republican form of Government with one in which an unaccountable Executive can imprison people forever without trial or judicial review.
[...]
The Administration's sudden and belated haste to move ahead makes no sense, other than as a matter of crass electoral politics. We are taking a first look at a bill that the Administration claims is central to the decisive ideological battle of the 21st Century, a bill that would suspend habeas corpus for the first time since the Civil War, and a bill that, if enacted, will almost certainly be used by America's enemies as a pretext for the torture and indefinite detention without judicial review of Americans abroad.
[...] If this Congress votes to suspend the writ of habeas corpus first and ask questions later, liberty and accountability will be the victims.
Emphasis added. I would critique it slightly to point out that the bill allows US Citizens to be declared "enemy combatents" and possibly held indefinitely too, also that it allows the President to interpret the definition of "Grave Breaches" in the Geneva conventions and then classify the resulting techniques he deems not to violate that. These are serious problems, amounting to "Yes, we're obeying Geneva, just ask us, we'll tell you we are!" But that seems to be what passes for "Oversight" amongst republicans these days.
I would like Leahy to rip on that too, but at least we know that the Senate is realizing there was no compromise...except of key American values and human rights. But that wasn't the compromise we were looking for.
Edit/Update: If you'd like to thank Sen Leahy, his contact info is found here. For other members of the Judiciary Committee, try here.
Edit/Update 2: There's a lot of fear in the comments about Feingold's position on this. Rest assured, he's with us too:
It's fair to say that Feingold's position on these bills is absolutely synonymous with the greater blogosphere's position. That is to say, he sees them as horrible and dangerous bills. He plans to try a few procedural moves to stall the bills. He'd like to see them delayed until after the election. As far as the mood of his colleagues, he said he will know more shortly. He needs to discuss matters with a few key Senators. He noted that Arlen Specter wants to hold a hearing this week on habeus corpus and wondered whether the bills can actually be voted on by Friday. The GOP wants to adjourn on Friday and start the campaign.