To the editor:

We now learn of efforts by the White House – only weeks after the Supreme Court declared illegal the Bush administration’s military commissions, which were set up to try and convict detainees held indefinitely without basic due process protections – to push Congress on an illegal proposal that violates the Supreme Court’s decision and abandons the rule of law.

The Bush plan calls on Congress to rubber-stamp these illegal commissions, effectively reversing the Supreme Court decision. The plan promoted by the White House would violate the Geneva Conventions, which were ratified by Congress, taking away the most basic process protections from detainees who are being held indefinitely.

Specifically, the White House proposal:

¢ Guts the enforceability of important Geneva Convention protections.

¢ Allows the use of evidence obtained through coercion, including horrific abuse.

¢ Sanctions convictions based on secret evidence.

¢ Bars a defendant from being present at his or her own trial.

¢ Allows the use of hearsay evidence.

During Senate hearings this past week, even the Pentagon’s top military lawyers agreed that no one should be convicted based on secret evidence and that every defendant has the right to be present at his own trial. They also made clear that coerced evidence – such as “confessions” beaten out of witnesses – has no place in any trial.

This is but one more in an unending stream of the administration’s continuing blatant hypocrisy!

Again we ask the rhetorical question: What kind of a government do we have?

Forrest Swall,

Lawrence