[wvns] Time to speak truth to US power

It is time to speak truth to US power
October 8 2007
The Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/27acf35c-75d3-11dc-b7cb-0000779fd2ac.html

Since the attacks of September 11 2001, the administration of
President George W. Bush has sought to cast a cloak of legality over
the wrongs that it has committed in the name of fighting terrorism.

Mr Bush seems to think that legal sleight of hand can be used to
justify almost any tactic to battle terrorists – including, it emerged
last week, simulated drowning and other cruel interrogation techniques
that Alberto Gonzales, his former attorney-general, appears to have
authorised by secret legal memorandum.

Time and again, Mr Bush has twisted the law to serve his own national
security goals. He has given the rule of law a bad name, and devalued
the US constitution – all in the name of protecting the American people.

But now the US Supreme Court has a chance to pierce this veil of
spurious legality, and reveal the constitutional and legal abuses
inherent in the anti-terrorism crusade – from the treatment of
detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, to the torture of terrorism
suspects in secret prisons overseas, to the unwarranted surveillance
of the phone calls and e-mails of US citizens.

Court cases challenging the legality of these policies have finally
made their way to the top court, and civil liberties groups are
pleading with the justices to take them up. The court has already
agreed to hear a case testing the constitutionality of a 2006 law
stripping Guantánamo detainees of the right to challenge their
detention in federal court.

As soon as Tuesday, the court could announce whether it will also hear
a case involving the "renditions" of terrorism suspects in secret
prisons overseas. The justices are also being urged to hear a case
testing the right of Americans to challenge the government's secret
surveillance programme in court.

In both the renditions and the surveillance case, the administration
is refusing to answer the charges against it, claiming the mantle of
state secrecy to stay out of court.

These cases give the justices the chance to undertake a comprehensive
review of Mr Bush's post-September 11 national security policies. They
should not pass up this opportunity.

The genius of American democracy is that it gives each branch of
government – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary – the
power to check abuses by every other branch. Mr Bush has abused his
power, and Congress has failed to hold him to account; it is time the
Supreme Court did so.

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