Terrorism bill ignores basic U.S. principles.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Edward Fadeley and Joyce Gall

What are we to think of the compromise bill now being considered by Congress that redefines our government's treatment and prosecution of presumed terrorists?

When our legislators jettison established civic freedoms, presumably in response to feared threats to national security, in what possible sense can anyone claim that the United States represents freedom and democracy, and thus merits global leadership and respect?

How does abducting people at our airports and shipping them to secret foreign sites for physically abusive interrogation, as was done recently to a Canadian citizen, promote leadership, freedom or democracy in our country? That Canadian was released after a year, in belated recognition that his incarceration was a mistake.

Continued conduct of that nature, carried out in secret, would be authorized, indeed immunized, under the compromise bill. One wonders how that will make this country stand taller on the international stage. Some provisions of the compromise bill more closely resemble an effort to adopt the tactics of our adversaries than an attempt to forward the cause of freedom and democracy.

This country prides itself on being a nation under law. Yet in some respects, the compromise bill authorizes the president to declare what the law itself is.

The bill is written to remove secret imprisonment and harsh interrogation from the coverage of any law of this country, including the law established by a treaty ratified by Congress and signed by the president. This bill does so by immunizing those acts from the law that currently covers them, and by granting to the president the power to say what the law is in the area of secret imprisonment and interrogation by the government's agents - a process that may go on for years without any review by the courts.

Our leaders hope to adopt the bill hurriedly, giving citizens, and indeed members of Congress, little time to understand it. Some provisions of major concern include the following:

Section 108(3) specifies `the president has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Convention' mandating treatment of enemy prisoners from all nations. His interpretations `shall be authoritative' - that is, no one can question them in any court or tribunal anywhere. The only exception to this total executive power is when there are `grave breaches of the Geneva Convention' for treatment of enemy prisoners. `Grave breaches' include `severe' pain or suffering, which is more than `serious.'

Section 106 provides that `no court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus for an alien detained by the United States who is currently in United States custody.'

Of course, this provision overrules the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that the hundreds imprisoned for years at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - and the 100 or so recently added to that group from secret prisons operated by this country in other nations - are entitled to contest whether they were properly detained or have been interrogated by methods that are too severe.

Section 107 states: `No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions in any proceeding to which the United States or other agent of the United States, is a party, as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its states.'

Another twist of the bill appears to be that, until the imprisoned person is brought to trial, there can be no review of his `detention.' No deadline is set for a possible trial, which if set would be before a `military commission' controlled by the president and not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Wisdom handed down from the Bible asks, `For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul." It appears possible that this country is in danger of losing its very guiding principles, along with its position of influence and respect in the world. That loss appears to be made more likely through legislation that reflects the cruel reasoning and tactics of our adversaries, as the compromise bill does.

Edward Fadeley of Creswell is a former president of the Oregon Senate and Oregon Supreme Court justice. Joyce (Joy) Gall of Eugene is a social psychologist and textbook author who, from 1999 to 2003, worked as a communication specialist in the Univeristy of Oregon Department of Educational Leadership, Technology and Administration.