You dont have to be Fred to know this aint done. Imagine some detective, or one of those hot female DAs looked at Fred's gruff, conservative character and said 'well, uh, you know, the evidence, its....scattered....over several precients, and boroughs....we....cant get our hands on it....but we're just going to try the perp and keep on doing so until we get a guilty verdict."

Great. Law & Order meets Catch-22.

But thats just TV - like the episode of CSI:Miami whose whole plot revolved around outsourcing torture to Third World mafia types because America didnt do that sort of thing.

No habius corpus. No right to a jury of their peers. No rights against illigal search and seziure. No rights. At all.

This is America? My America? The one on TV isnt the real one?

Damn.

Are you stupid? Because you are acting stupid.

1. They are not US citizens, so they do not have legal rights of citizens.

2. The evidence that they were convicted of did exist and was seen by courts. This was an appeals court that wanted to get ahold of the evidence, especially when they lacked jurisdiction to even have the right to see privledged information.

Oh! Lucky me! I've attracted the attention of the Slate Troll!

Silly San! The idea of democracy is all-inclusive. These truths are self-evident that all Men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unaliable rights.

Everybody! Foreigners too! Not just white, male, straight, veterans like myself.

And San, how long before them becomes us? Right now them are locked away in Guantanamo Bay, far away from us. How long before someone says 'we can do it to them, why not extend the definition of them to a few of us. Say, guys who speak out against us. Wilson did it in WWI, so theres history on our side.'

Now, go on. Run along back to your bridge, and if you're really good, I'll send you some billygoats.

San doesn't really mean they don't have the rights of citizens. He really means that they have no rights at all. Not even the Geneva Conventions apply, according to the administration.

"The idea of democracy is all-inclusive"

And thats why we have a Republic.

Federalist 10 highlights that nicely, jackass.

Last time I checked, Geneva Conventions apply to soldiers in uniform.

These terrorists don't wear uniforms and aren't part of a State based army, so they have no Geneva Convention rights.

Exactly what I said, San. You believe the detainees have no rights whatsoever. No opportunity for due process. For you, it makes perfect sense that the Pentagon would require convictions regardless of personal pleas on the detainee's part. Nothing draconian about this, right?

I don't believe the federalist papers are part of the constitution .So why are people (like sa n) quoting them?I understand what they are and what they mean but i cannot find them in the constitution(you know ,THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND)

I don't agree with the assertion that non-citizens have no rights, but the way the administration sees it, this distinction between citizens and non-citizens is irrelevant. They believe that enemy combatants have no rights. Well, who are "enemy combatants"? According to the Bush administration, enemy combatants are whoever they say they are. That means a political opponent, for example. Or just about anybody they don't like.

Some people believe that Americans who protest the occupation of Iraq and call for us to remove our troops from there are "helping the enemy". If the government wanted to adopt that view, that protesters were helping the enemy, they could, in the middle of the night, break into homes of the protesters, bring them to a secret location, torture them, and then hold them in an undisclosed location as long as they wanted to. Sounds like the Gestapo or the KGB. That won't happen here? Why not? You've eliminated that protection from the constitution.

State-based army? Mmmm. Like the Taliban? They were the state.

Bad troll! No peasants for you!

Hey San, want about our private security forces over in Iraq. Are they alll wearing uniforms or part of a State army?

Draconian? You act like that word means something.

You agree with the people that believe they have the right to take everyone's money and redistribute that money around, and you some how think that you have the moral grounds to talk about tough penalties for committing terroristic acts on our troops overseas? You are a nut case.

" I don't believe the federalist papers are part of the constitution"

And yet the SCOTUS turns to them quite often in interpreting the Constitution.

Imagine that.

"That means a political opponent, for example. Or just about anybody they don't like."

If by political opponent, you mean non-citizen in a war ground area, sure.

By your understanding, Al Qaeda are just poor unfortunate Bush dissenters that are unfairly being locked up. But see, the reality is, anyone who puts out IEDs and shoots rockets at our troops, regardless of their political belief, should be locked up.

"State-based army? Mmmm. Like the Taliban? They were the state."

According to Geneva convention, soldiers need to show their state symbol on uniforms. Al Qaeda didn't do that, just like none of the prisoners did.