Due Process Suffers a Blow; Ashcroft Is Denied Immunity in Case

It used to be that American justice was a beacon for world full of despotism, selective law enforcement, judicial and executive excess. Now any non-citizen can be kidnapped and held for life without chance of trial, appeal or even seeing the evidence against them. And we have the President's word he won't order them tortured. He's been torturing all along and lying about it. It's a sad day for America when foreigners anywhere are no longer entitled to America's due process laws about imprisonment without trial.
Meanwhile, former Attorney General Ashcroft may be the second Administration official to face a court over the War Powers excesses of the Bush Administration.
Truly this has been a sad time for American values.
washingtonpost.com

Congress approved landmark changes to the nation's system of interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects last night, preparing the ground for possible military trials for key al-Qaeda members under rules that critics say will draw stiff constitutional challenges.


The Senate joined the House in embracing President Bush's view that the battle against terrorism justifies the imposition of extraordinary limits on defendants' traditional rights in the courtroom. They include restrictions on a suspect's ability to challenge his detention, examine all evidence against him, and bar testimony allegedly acquired through coercion of witnesses.


[...]Democrats resisted both measures and nearly amended the detainee bill to allow foreigners designated as enemy combatants to challenge their captivity by filing habeas corpus appeals with the federal courts. But Republicans held fast, gambling that Democrats will fail in their bid to convince voters that the GOP is sacrificing the nation's traditions of justice and fairness in the name of battling terrorists and winning elections.

The only real hope is that the Supreme Court will strike down this law or the new 110th Congress appeals the law.
On a more positive note:
washingtonpost.com

A federal judge in Idaho has ruled that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen arrested as a "material witness" in a terrorism case. U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, in a ruling issued late Wednesday, dismissed claims by the Justice Department that Ashcroft and other officials should be granted immunity from claims by a former star college football player arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003.


Attorneys for the plaintiff in the civil suit, Abdullah al-Kidd, said the decision raises the possibility that Ashcroft could be forced to testify or turn over records about the government's use of the material witness law, a cornerstone of its controversial legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.


The law was intended to give authorities the power to detain witnesses they feared might flee before testifying. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government used it to hold 70 men, nearly half of whom were never called to testify in court, according to a study by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch.


Kidd -- a Kansas native who was known as Lavoni T. Kidd before converting to Islam -- was arrested in March 2003 as he prepared to board a flight to Saudi Arabia, where he was planning to pursue a doctorate in Islamic studies. Federal prosecutors claimed he was a flight risk crucial to the prosecution of a fellow University of Idaho student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen. Kidd was imprisoned for 16 days in three states and then placed under restrictive court supervision for more than a year. But Kidd was never called to testify against Hussayen, who was eventually acquitted of computer-related terrorism charges.


While not deciding on the veracity of Kidd's claims, Lodge, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush, ruled that Ashcroft could be found personally liable in the case because of his role in establishing and enforcing the government's material-witness policies.