ENEMY COMBATANTS NON PERSONS ACCORDING TO SCOTUS RULING

I guess this is the change that all of those screaming about the abuses of the Bush administration were hoping for when they voted for Obama. Not only is torture acceptable it is to be expected as a normal condition of imprisonment during war. And they went a step further, declaring prisoners non persons. So, if you are declared an enemy combatant (we know that would never be abused) you will effectively be stripped of all rights afforded a human being. You will be considered a non person; just like slaves were before they were granted civil rights and just like babies in the womb today.

So, if you speak out against government activities during a time of war would you be considered an enemy combatant? If so, what stops the government from making you disappear? Does this ruling effectively give the FBI or Secret Service essentially the same powers as the KGB?

Do we even have a "Bill of Rights" any longer? Do we have freedom? Is this still America?

"In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal Monday to review a lower court’s dismissal of a case brought by four British former Guantanamo prisoners against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the detainees’ lawyers charged Tuesday that the country’s highest court evidently believes that "torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use."

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., had ruled that government officials were immune from suit because at that time it was unclear whether abusing prisoners at Guantanamo was illegal.

Channeling their predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, Obama Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad.

The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear the case. By agreeing, the court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court, which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – a statute that applies by its terms to all "persons" – did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law."

Anti War