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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, September 15, 2006

The "immunity clause" in the detainee bill

Amidst all the discussion and debate over the treatment, torture, and trial issues around the Bush bill and the 3rd Geneva Convention, the inclusion of the immunity clause is going largely unmentioned.
"the draft Administration bill would (i) retroactively legalize all the unlawful acts that were approved and performed from 2001 to the present day (see section 9, page 86); (ii) would cut off all judicial review of U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions (section 6(b), page 79)" (sorry, I can't find the link. - mike)

The Supreme Court has expressed in Hamdan that the administration's claims of war time powers are void, so, this clause not only acts to protect the CIA folks who were "just following orders," but it would also serve to retroactively immunize Bush administration officials for ordering violations of the Geneva Conventions, and by connection, The War Crimes Act in the US criminal code.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I think retroactively legalizing war crimes is a pretty big deal.

(And it's probably worth mentioning this is not the first immunity effort being debated against McCain and Graham (1, 2.) All of the language is around protecting US personnel, but, legally, the immunity would reach the White House.)

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