Welcome to the future...

Even the middle-of-the-road Gray Lady recognised the danger of the Bush administration's Military Commissions Act of 2006.

From yesterday's editorial:

...Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

The editorial compares the bill to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Personally, I think this legislation is worse.

And while I'm glad I live outside the US, that doesn't make me safe.

This law gives the president power to name anyone an "illegal enemy combatant," subjecting both legal residents of the United States and foreign citizens living abroad to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal.