Tuesday, November 15, 2005

A Step In The Right direction

The Senate is backing away from the Graham amendment, and has reached agreement on a new plan.


The compromise links legislation written by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., which would deny detainees broad access to federal courts, with a new measure written by Sen. Carl M. Levin, D-Mich., that would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal to a federal appeals court. The deal will come to a vote today, and the authors say they are confident it will pass.

Graham and Levin indicated they would then demand that House and Senate negotiators link their measure with the effort by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to clearly ban torture and abuse of terrorism suspects being held in U.S. facilities.



Not perfect, in fact not very good, but clearly a step in the right direction.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its not near enough We can't continue to use black holes and deny access to courts

The US has to stand for what is right

Anonymous said...

This isn't a step in the right direction. It's clear case of misdirection. Denying habeas corpus is simply another form of punishment, even torture. I think this move by Lindsey Graham was instigated by the White House opponents of McCain's non-torture amendment.