January 31, 2005

Guantonamo Prisoner's Rights

Steven Taylor gets it right with regard to US District Judge Green's ruling that the Guantonamo Bay prisoners have constitutional protections:

While I am amenable to the argument that non-citizens may not have the same rights under the Constitution as citizens (depending on the exact circumstances), I do adhere to the notion that there are fundamental hunan rights, many of which are, in fact, detailed in the US Constitution. As a result I cannot abide by the concept that we have the right to indefinitely detain human beings who �might� be a threat. Either they are a threat or they are not, and there needs to be a legitimate process by which to determine that fact.

The issue to me is that there has to be some standard applied to these detainees, and since it seems we have been unable to construct a viable one, I am not sure the proper course isn�t the Constitution.

The key is that as human beings we all have certain fundamental rights. That some of them are detailed in the US Constitution does not restrict their application to only US citizens.

Posted by Steve on January 31, 2005
Comments

I was in law enforcement and part of our public liability training dealt with section 242 of Title 18 of the US Code which gives non-citizens the same rights as citizens in the area of criminal law.

The Vienna Protocol gives them the additional right of contacting their embassy if you arrest them.

When I posted on Gonzales I quoted the applicable laws and linked to them.

I'm not an attorney, but if every cop is instructed in these laws in a good police academy, it is hard to see how the judge could rule any other way.

Posted by Bryan at February 1, 2005 8:48 PM
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