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TheRealMafoo on 23 May 2009
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akuma587 said:

Taken from the Constitution:

Section 9 - Limits on Congress

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

The Constitution says you can do this.  The problem with the Bush Adminstration's approach is that they went behind the other branches of government's backs to do this.  Congress is the only one with this power to suspend habeas corpus.  If Congress approves a limited suspension of habeas corpus rights, there is no violation of the Constitution if done in the appropriate time ("when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.")  The courts also need to be able to oversee these decisions and have people challenge whether or not the executive branch has properly exercised these rights.

There was no legal framework put forth by the Bush Adminstration for determing when this was appropriate and who this power could be used upon.  They were just lumping everyone together and suspending all of their habeas corpus rights, including American citizens.  Obama is proposing a system under which their are strict criteria authorized by Congress that must be met for this to apply, and the courts must be able to oversee this decision.  That is completely consistent with the Constitution.  The Bush Adminstration just did this all unilaterally without any authorization or oversight from the other branches of government.

Its not violating the Constitution if you do what the Constitution requires you to do.

I see,

Funny that the entire time you have argued against what the Bush administration did, it was what we were doing to people, not that we didn't have a law in place to do it. Now that your guy is in office, if we pass laws to treat people the exact same way we have been treating them for the last 6+ years, you're OK with it.

So in your eyes, raping women is bad, but if a law passed that said it was legal to rape women, then it's OK?

(yea, it's an extreme to prove a point, I know you would not be ok with it)