Negative Quiddity: "A Poisoned Chalice"

The Senate is considering legislation that would authorize the government to detain people indefinitely without trial for a potentially unlimited period of time. The same legislation would also make permanent provisions that inhibit efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

We know the importance of respecting the dignity of all human beings. As Americans, we know the importance of the rule of law and due process. Let's not override the values we cherish. These values are under current attack.

The provisions are part of S. 1253, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. Please consider writing to your Senators today to tell them to remove these sections (sections 1031 ["Authority to detain unprivileged enemy belligerents captured persuant to the Authorization to use Military Force"] , 1033 ["Permanent requirements for certifications relating to the transfer of detainees at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to foreign countries and other foreign entities"] , and 1034 ["Prohibition on use of funds to construct or modify facilities in the United States to house detainees transferred from United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba"]) from the bill.

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 Indefinite detention without trial
is the definition of a police state

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A reminder from our own history about "a poisoned chalice":

"If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether [then just defeated Nazi] Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us...We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

  --Justice Robert H. Jackson, while prosecuting the Nuremberg trials after the defeat of Nazi Germany

Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954). He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. A "county-seat lawyer", he remains the last Supreme Court justice appointed who did not graduate from any law school

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Today’s posting is based on Wikipedia research as well as an email from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.