Sayonara to Checks and Balances?

"Checks and balances" has a nice ring. But it's a currency that doesn't go a long way in Washington today.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, of MCA, passed by the House and Senate is a wholesale assault on the idea of a limited government under law.

It will be taken by the Bush Administration as a blank check to torture, to detain indefinitely without just cause, and to trample the values that win America respect in the world. From tomorrow, counter-terrorism is the "land of do as you please" for the President and the wise men of the Defense Department -- those savants who brought you Iraq, the gift that keeps on giving (at least if you're a jihadist).

The MCA comprehensively assaults two ideas: The idea of checking executive power by laws. And the idea of a separate branch of government ensuring those limits are respected. These are the basic tools of accountability. The MCA frontally attacks both of these -- although only time will tell whether it succeeds.

How does the Military Commissions Act assail checks and balances? Consider the key issues of detention and torture.

The MCA says nothing explicit about the detention power. Indeed, I would argue that nothing in the legislation ought to be read to imply

Here's how the Addington play for detention power will work. The opening definition of the Act describes elaborately what an "unlawful enemy combatant" is. Why? The term is a neologism. The laws of war do not use or define this term. Indeed, it is a mutation of a phrase used in a subordinate clause of a 1942 Supreme Court opinion. Nothing else in the Act directly turns on this definition--although only an "alien unlawful enemy combatant" can be subject to trial by military commission. So why bother with the elaborate definition? And why extend the definition to U.S. citizens as well as non-citizens?

Back in 2004, the Supreme Court, in the now well-known Hamdi v. Rumsfeld decision, stated that an "enemy combatant" captured in hostilities could be held for the duration of those hostilities. The Court made very clear it was talking about only the limited context of the ground war in Afghanistan, not some amorphous and unending "war on terror." But Addington et al. will, however, take Hamdi's sanction of detention--and extend it far, far beyond Hamdi. It will be a detention power that applies anywhere and anytime.

There are two ways in which you -- citizen or non-citizen, resident of Topeka or Timbuktu -- can become an "unlawful enemy combatant."

The first way is if you engage "n hostilities" or "purposefully and materially support" hostilities. This sounds reasonable enough until you realize that no-one has the slightest clue what it means to "purposefully and materially support" hostilities. Do you need to intend to aid the hostilities? Or is it enough to intend to give the support? Would purposely giving to a charity that then gave money to Hamas count, even if you knew nothing about the Hamas? What about writing an editorial that gave "aid and comfort" to the enemy -- say, by criticizing the Administration's Iraq policy?

The second way is -- if it's even possible -- more dangerous: You are designated an enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- the Potemkin proceedings jerry-rigged at Guantánamo -- or you are designated by "another competent tribunal" created by the Defense Secretary.

It's the latter that catches in the throat, because the MCA does not define what Rumsfeld's "competent tribunal" must look like. Rummy himself with the always-fair-and-impartial Addington? Five Syrian torturers (like the ones to whom the U.S. sent the hapless Canadian Maher Arar)? A bunch of guys who flip coins for your liberty? Sure, why not? The MCA doesn't stop the executive from using any of these, provided Rumsfeld gave them power and hence made them "competent."