First, the good news:
Congress Adopts Restriction on Treatment of Detainees:
Congress barred the government on Tuesday from using any money in a newly passed emergency spending bill to subject anyone in American custody to torture or “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” that is forbidden by the Constitution.
On the other hand, as Declan McCullagh reports on CNET, Senate approves electronic ID card bill:
Last-minute attempts by online activists to halt an electronic ID card failed Tuesday when the U.S. Senate unanimously voted to impose a sweeping set of identification requirements on Americans.
The so-called Real ID Act now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law this month.
Upsides and downsides below the fold.
First, what does the anti-torture provision do? Well, according to the Paper of Record:
[The provision] says that no money appropriated in the bill can be used “to subject any person in the custody or under the physical control of the United States to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited by the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.”
And what about the most egregious abuse?
Human rights advocates said it was unclear whether the prohibition would restrict the ability of the C.I.A. or other government agencies to conduct so-called renditions – that is, to send terrorism suspects to be interrogated in other countries, even those that are known to engage in abusive treatment of prisoners.
So basically we have a provision that is supposed to prevent (but not outlaw) abuses, and may not even prevent the greatest one, and which depends on existing oversight mechanisms for its enforcement.
Weak and unclear, but still movement in the right direction.
None of which can be said of the RealID Act. To quote McCullagh again:
If the act’s mandates take effect in May 2008, as expected, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with “machine readable technology” that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings.
That basically entails “federalized” drivers licenses that meet the Department of Homeland Security requirements (which, btw, have not yet been released).
So Americans must surrender control of their personal data in order to participate in everyday life.
The ACLU notes a further risk of federalized ID:
“The federalization of drivers’ licenses, and the culling of all information into massive databases, creates a system ripe for identity theft. New standards could place our most private information – including photographs, address and social security numbers – into the hands of identity thieves.
Oh yeah – the icing on the cake:
The act would also eliminate, in some [immigration and asylum] cases, the right of habeas corpus as an avenue for court review for the first time since the Civil War.
One step forward, two steps back.
Update [2005-5-12 6:3:39 by Dvx]:
The battle is lost but it looks like the war is on. This from today’s Wired:
[…] Several Republican and Democrat senators who cast favorable votes for the bill simultaneously railed against the provision authorizing the new driver’s license rules.
They’re not the only ones refusing to accept the bill peacefully. The National Governors Association is threatening lawsuits to fight the legislation. And some states are threatening to ignore the legislation because they say it will cost up to $700 million for states to comply and will place a heavy burden on Department of Motor Vehicles workers.
A spokeswoman for the governors’ association did not return calls for comment. But Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, told the Associated Press this week that “if more than half of the governors agree we’re not going down without a fight on this, Congress will have to consider changing” the rules.
Go governors!
This miss is not only highly intrusive, but hassle-intensive as well:
All drivers, including current license holders, would have to provide multiple documents to verify their identity before they could obtain a license or renew one. Drivers would have to provide several types of documentation, such as a photo ID, birth certificate, proof that their Social Security number is legitimate and something that verifies the applicant’s full home address.
For more information on what RealID means, and what you can do, take a look at this awesome website.
My first attempt at a diary entry (gulp).
Many Democrats are howling about the bad riders attached to the emergency supplemenatal bill. They are seriously bashing the Dem senators for voting for this bill. I can’t see how the Dem senators could have NOT voted for it. Too much crucially needed money for properly armoring our troops.
The Republican committee slid these extraneous riders into it during their closed door meeting and left it a fait accompli. Nothing anyone in the minority could do about it unless we wanted to vote en mass to kill the entire bill. That’s political suicide and, IMO, morally wrong to delay these needed funds.
One small glimmer of hope that I have is that there is a swelling movement to strip these riders from the funding bill thru later legislation. But that is going to be time consuming.
BTW…good job on the diary!
Thanks for the kudos!
I too hope that later legislation will kill RealID. To derail this through legislation before it kicks in in May 08, the Good Guys will have to kick but in 2006.
One more incentive!
Great job, thanks for raising this important issue. Keep the diaries coming!
If the US does it, whether at home or abroad, it is neither genocide, nor a crime against humanity, nor an atrocity, nor prohibited by the west wing restroom’s hygienic aid, previously referred to as the Constitution.
Gulp, is anyone else as uncomfortable with the path this administration seems to be taking, I ask rhetorically. It feels to me like watching history remaking itself, reminicent of the 30’s and a little brownshirted group called the Nationalist Socialist Party. They have engineered so much legislation to eliminate rights and deny access to information, that soon the people will have lost the ability to govern those that govern them. Is this the path that the Reichwingers in the Republican and Democratic parties really want to take and if it is, we as a society better and I repeat better start doing something now. I am joining the ACLU, because I believe it is the only national organization that can respond to this crisis. If the Repuglican Reichwingers invoke the Nuclar option then I believe it will not be long before Habeas corpus for the American citizens ( noting that the US government currently holds three US citizens incommudicado)and the Reichwingers will start with their very own special re-education camps for those citizens who are not believers. I suspect that GW the talkinghead Bush would like nothing more that to become the dictator of the US, remembering his joking about that very thing. If his corporate masters can ever figure out how to eliminate all the guns in the hands of citizens, we might very well be in trouble my friends.
Sorry – I must be an ignorant foreigner: which three US citizens are held incommunicado?
My apologies there are only two US citizens now being held without due process or the right of habeas corpus. They are Jose Padilla, and Maher Hawash, both US citizens, both held without any link to the courts or habeas corpus. The third US citizen was Yasir Hamdi and he was given the option to renounce his US citizenship and return to Saudi Arabia. He took it. I still find it very very disquieting that any US citizen, no matter what the crime alleged is detained without due process. It shakes the very foundation of our republic that a sitting President can deem any US citizen a threat to National Security and detain them without due process. King George the III ring any bells in America.
to detain a non-US citizen without due process! 🙂
I agree and apologize for not clarifying that further. I can however only fight one fight at a time and the current mood of our administration is that King George the Buchco and his merry band of Marauders can only be taught one lesson at a time. Seems they have an extreme type of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I can only hope that these fascists who have taken over two portions of our government will be thwarted in their attempts to take over our judiciary.