President Bush Signs Un-American Military Commissions Act, ACLU Says New Law Undermines Due Process and the Rule of Law (10/17/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
WASHINGTON - As President Bush signed S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act
of 2006 into law, the American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage and
called the new law one of the worst civil liberties measures ever enacted in
American history.
To highlight concerns with the act, the ACLU took out a full page
advertisement in today's Washington Post, calling itself "the most conservative
organization in America." Since its founding, the ACLU has fought to
conserve the system of checks and balances and defend the Bill of Rights.
The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive
Director:
"With his signature, President Bush enacts a law that is both
unconstitutional and un-American. This president will be remembered as the
one who undercut the hallmark of habeas in the name of the war on terror.
Nothing separates America more from our enemies than our commitment to fairness
and the rule of law, but the bill signed today is an historic break because it
turns Guantánamo Bay and other U.S. facilities into legal no-man's-lands.
"The president can now - with the approval of Congress - indefinitely hold
people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people
on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to
death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the
courthouse door for habeas petitions. Nothing could be further from the
American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions
Act."
The full page advertisement from the Washington Post is available at: www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/27085leg20061017.html
The ACLU's letter on S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, is
available at: www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/26861leg20060925.html
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