Now That You Could be Labeled an Enemy Combatant

[ChrisCantSkate]

steve you realize we have laws in place that do pretty much this for citizens, its called the espionage act(or somehtign along those lines.. i forget exactly) and you can be put to death for it. this seems more like a way to deal with foriegn policy. beleive me if you commit an act of terror or communicate about one with a terrorist group i dont want any loopholes for those people because they are "citizens". we have to have something on the books about "what to do when" and this is just that, it seems. its beena year or so since i took a law class, but im pretty sure thats who they are covering thier asses. by what your saying you think citizens should be able to deal/plot with terrorist groups and not have any consiquences for it.

this might be applicable to citizens, and if it is, so be it. sure its one of those "if you have nothing to hide you shouldnt worry" type senerios but at the same time we have executed/life time prisoned people for dealing witht he russians, cubans, germans, japanise, britsh, spanish, etc. this is nothing new except its a policy for dealing with foriegners. it dosnt have to apply to citizens because we're(citizens) are already under our gov'ts laws and have ones in place for these type of things.

[GT40FIED]

Well an "enemy combatant" doesn't exactly have to be involved in espionage or treason, does he? And you just know sooner or later people who leak unfavorable government information to the media will be labeled at best as traitors and at worst as enemy combatants. I'm not saying those in league with terrorists shouldn't be dealt with. They should be locked away in prison never to see the light of day again. But torturing them? That's a little far reaching...even for a country as arrogant as the US. Again, you can draw the comparison of someone who we capture and consider an enemy combatant and someone a terrorist group captures whom they consider an enemy combatant. According to this bill, both subjects will likely be treated equally so how will we ever claim to be the good guys? Yes, a terrorist group would likely be more harsh, but torture is torture.

If you really, truely, honestly think this is a scenario of "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about", I invite you to sit back and watch this whole thing spiral out of control. Anyome who believes innocent people will not be harmed under this law is either an idiot or they're lying to themselves. Maybe both. I mean...why not harm innocent people? Who cares? It's not like you'll ever be held accountable.