Bush’s Plan to Erode Our Liberties

We won't breathe freely until Bush and Cheney are really gone.

Bush’s Plan to Erode Our Liberties - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Early this week, judge advocates halted two prosecutions in the Guantánamo military commissions established under the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA). This is not the first setback the Administration’s second-tier court system has hit; the Supreme Court invalidated an earlier iteration of the commissions in 2006. And it won’t be the last. But while this week’s setback likely will be speedily surmounted, it casts an unexpected light on the MCA’s real purposes, and what’s at stake when the Bush Administration plays politics with national security.

Understanding the significance of this week’s ruling means delving into a bit of procedural arcana. The devil in the MCA is, almost literally, in the details–and unless we attend closely to the rococo details of the statute, we’ll miss the ways in which the Administration intends to slowly erode our liberties.