Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that sets forth a clear, comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of enemy belligerents who are suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States. This legislation seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again and put Americans’ security at risk.

Specifically, this bill would require unprivileged enemy belligerents suspected of engaging in hostilities against the U.S. to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a “high value detainee” interagency team established by the President. This interagency team of experts in national security, terrorism, intelligence, interrogation and law enforcement will have the protection of U.S. civilians and civilian facilities as their paramount responsibility and experience in gaining actionable intelligence from high value detainees.
…
A key provision of this bill is that it would prohibit a suspected enemy belligerent from being provided with a Miranda warning and being told he has a right to a lawyer and a right to refuse to cooperate. I believe that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that when we capture a terrorist who is suspected of carrying out or planning an attack intended to kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent civilians, our focus must be on gaining all the information possible to prevent that attack or any that may follow from occurring. Under these circumstances, actionable intelligence must be our highest priority and criminal prosecution must be secondary.
–Senator John McCain, Arizona

For those of you who prefer to read actual legislative language rather than the public announcements of politicians. From the bill:

INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN STATEMENT AND RIGHTS- A individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent shall not, during interrogation under this subsection, be provided the statement required by Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) or otherwise be informed of any rights that the individual may or may not have to counsel or to remain silent consistent with Miranda v. Arizona. (link)

So said individual only needs to be suspected of being one of these new “enemy belligerents” in order to not be informed of any rights they may or may not have. This would, I should think fall far afoul of one of the great laws of our lawful land: innocent until proven guilty.

PRELIMINARY DETERMINATION BY HIGH-VALUE DETAINEE INTERROGATION GROUP- The high-value detainee interrogation group responsible for interrogating a high-value detainee under subsection (b) shall make a preliminary determination whether or not the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent. The interrogation group shall make such determination based on the result of its interrogation of the individual and on all intelligence information available to the interrogation group. (link)

Said individual is determined to be an “unprivileged enemy belligerent” and therefore being eligible for interrogation by the high-value detainee interrogation group (explained starting here) only after being stripped of any rights this individual may or may not have and being interrogated by said high-value detainee interrogation group. That’s some circular logic for you. Paradox much?

CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION OF INDIVIDUALS AS HIGH-VALUE DETAINEES- The regulations required by this subsection shall include criteria for designating an individual as a high-value detainee based on the following:

(A) The potential threat the individual poses for an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the United States or upon United States citizens or United States civilian facilities abroad at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States.
(B) The potential threat the individual poses to United States military personnel or United States military facilities at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States.
(C) The potential intelligence value of the individual.
(D) Membership in al Qaeda or in a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda.
(E) Such other matters as the President considers appropriate. (link)

The bit in bold rather destroys all pretense of checks and balances and the division of governmental powers in order to keep any one branch of becoming a little too god-like. Never should there be a law of any sort that says anything like “oh, and whatever the President thinks should be included.” Much too open-ended and fraught with danger of abuse.

But finally, we come to something of true importance for any American citizen to consider:

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities. (link)

Bad enough McCain and his fellow co-sponsors are more than willing to throw away “all men are created equal” (not just Americans) and innocent until proven guilty for non-citizens of the USA, but they are also more than willing to do so for American citizens, and as we’ve read earlier in the bill … pretty much at the whim of whomever happens to be living in the White House. If I were these Senators, I think I’d be wondering if handing such an open-ended and easily abused law to the current administration might not lead to being named an enemy belligerent for having created the thing. It does say the President gets the final say on who is and is not an enemy belligerent, after all.

And back again to McCain’s announcement:

Mr. President, it should come as no comfort to any American that nearly eight and a half years after the attacks of 9/11 we still don’t have a clear mechanism, legal structure, and implementing policy for dealing with terrorists who we capture in the act of trying to bring about attacks on the United States and our national security interests at home and abroad.
–Senator John McCain, Arizona

Yes, we do. The USA has this thing called a legal system that we’ve been using for some time now to lock up people who do stupid, crazy, or evil stuff, and it seems to mostly work not just for your common street thug but also for those pesky terrorists (who are obviously supermen since normal prisons and normal trials are too puny to hold or try them). One of the cornerstones of our country has always been our belief in the right of everyone –citizen or not– to a far trial and certain rights … and that in order to be found guilty of some crime a person has to be found to actually be guilty, instead of some single someone (say, the President) just deciding they are. This bill jumps up on that cornerstone and craps all over it.

Every day is feels more and more like McCain has lost some of his previously functioning brain cells. Take for example all those years he called himself a “maverick” to only recently saying he never considered himself a maverick at all. Was he lying back then (during the 2008 elections and before), lying now, or has he gone senile? Me, I’m voting for having gone senile, because this piece of crap bill doesn’t sound like anything the McCain of the past would have anything to do with. My how things change when one either goes bat-crap crazy or starts playing entirely too much to the far right base.