Jonathan at Irregular Times has this to say about HR 6166 and S 3930:

The legislation (HR 6166 and S 3930) currently moving through the Congress to give President Bush the powers of a dictator through severe attacks on the freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights is so important to President Bush’s agenda that he has personally visited the Senate to push the vote on S 3930 to go through as soon as possible.

In a short speech to the Senate, George W. Bush announced that “Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people from further attack.”

No, President Bush, your most important responsibility is not to protect the American people from further attack.

Senators, please remember today that you have taken a solemn oath of office, the same oath that the President of the United States of America has taken. That oath was not a promise to make the American people secure. It was a promise to protect the Constitution of the United States of America from enemies foreign and domestic.

George W. Bush has become a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States of America. It is the sworn duty of every United States Senator to defy Bush, and to vote NO on his request for new totalitarian powers.

Another Day in the Empire asks: Are You an Enemy Combatant?

Slowly but surely, the Bush neocons and their perfidious allies in Congress are cobbling together a secret police apparatus that will eventually mirror Hitler’s Gestapo, Stalin’s NKVD, East Germany’s Stasi, and Chile’s Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia, to cite but a few examples.

“The United States could detain more foreigners as enemy combatants under legislation Congress will debate this week after a last-minute change in the bill, lawmakers said on Tuesday,” reports Reuters. “Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key negotiator on the bill, said enemy combatants would now include those who provided money, weapons and other support for terrorist groups as well as those involved in actual operations.”

Of course, many would argue that the key word here is “foreigners” and this legislation poses no threat to Americans. However, considering previous comments of “key negotiator” Lindsey Graham, we can likely expect this legislation to be used against “fifth columnists,” as the good senator from South Carolina deems all who oppose the neocon doctrine of forever war.

As Graham told the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, “the administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue fifth column movements…. And let me tell folks who are watching what a fifth column movement is. It is a movement known to every war where American citizens will sympathize with the enemy and collaborate with the enemy. And it’s happened in every war,” never mind that this particular war is undeclared. Naturally, for the neocons, simply opposing the “war” in Iraq and the parallel “war” against terrorism at home is an act of sympathizing with the enemy, that is to say “al-Qaeda,” the black op pseudo gang crafted by the CIA and the Pentagon.

“Graham said U.S. citizens could not be deemed enemy combatants under the bill, but several human rights advocates said the language was so broad that they believed Americans could be detained under it. The Center for Constitutional Rights said even attorneys representing Guantanamo inmates could be deemed enemy combatants,” Reuters continues.

Back to Irregular Times, Jim also discusses the issue: Republican Torture Bill Draws In More People With Less Proof, Buggering the Constitution

That’s right. A committee drawn up by George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld gets to decide whether you are an “enemy combatant.” And if they decide you are, you are. And if they so decide, may whatever deity you believe in have mercy on your soul, because the USA will show no such mercy.

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