I have a right...to no rights!

At least this is one less right to have to worry about or study in law school:

"Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees. In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States. Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, was arrested in 2001 while studying in the United States. He has been labeled an "enemy combatant," a designation that, under a law signed last month, strips foreigners of the right to challenge their detention in federal courts. That law is being used to argue the Guantanamo Bay cases, but Al-Marri represents the first detainee inside the United States to come under the new law. Aliens normally have the right to contest their imprisonment, such as when they are arrested on immigration violations or for other crimes. "It's pretty stunning that any alien living in the United States can be denied this right," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for Al-Marri. "It means any non-citizen, and there are millions of them, can be whisked off at night and be put in detention."

So Hafetz is just now figuring out that basic rights of not being disappeared in the middle of the night without a phone call, a lawyer or the right to challenge the imprisonment don't exist anymore in America? There is a legal phrase a lot of people use but don't understand, it's called "due process." When you are arrested, for example, you are entitled to "due process." What does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean perfect process or endless process. It means what process you are due. According to the Bush administration an "unlawful enemy combatant" is due no process. That should speed things up and reduce paperwork. And how is it that one is designated an "unlawful enemy combatant?" Well, President Bush decides you are and that's that. Oh, and before you think this only applies to "fer-ners" you'd better mute Deal or No Deal and read the law. If you can't find two brain cells to rub together to generate a spark of intelligence, take my word for it - U.S. citizens can be thrown into a black hole of a cell in a black site and become a fading memory to those that knew him. American citizens can be designated an "unlawful enemy combatant."

So meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Bush decides if you are an unlawful enemy combatant. You have no right to challenge your indefinite imprisonment - especially if you are completely innocent since finding that out might embarrass the government. And the government says this is all constitutional no matter if you are held in a prison on American soil. So the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees that no person shall be deprived "of their liberty, that is imprisoned, without "due process" has been turned into "any person shall be imprisoned if The Decider decides so and shall be deprived of their liberty so the terrorists don't win." I think they already have.