Conference Report on H.R. 1815, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 1815, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (House of Representatives - December 18, 2005)
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, today we are being asked to vote on the Department of Defense Authorization conference report. Once again, the House is being required to vote on a bill in the dead of night, without the opportunity to read the language or consider its ramifications. I am especially concerned about two provisions in this bill--provisions that were not in the original House bill, were not the subject of Congressional hearings, and have not been carefully scrutinized. Yet, those two provisions--one that undermines the fundamental right of habeas corpus and the other that undermines the ban on torture--will have profound implications for our legal traditions and our reputation throughout the world.
The first provision, based on a Senate amendment, would limit U.S. courts' historic habeas corpus jurisdiction to review detentions. This would cut off access to the courts by persons held at Guantánamo Bay.
Habeas corpus is one of the most fundamental precepts of American Constitutional tradition. The court-stripping provision included in this legislation would do grievous harm to the rule that the government cannot just lock up people without showing cause to a court. It is not a change that we should enact without careful consideration by the appropriate committees in the House and Senate.
In a letter to Members of Congress commenting on the Senate amendment, Leslie H. Jackson, head of the POW organization, American Ex-Prisoners of War, said ``As we limit the rights of human beings, even those of the enemy, we become more like the enemy. That makes us weaker and imperils our troops. I am proud to be an American and proud of my service to my country. This Amendment, well intentioned as it may be, will diminish us.'' William D. Rogers, former Under Secretary of State during the Ford Administration, also expressed serious concerns about the possible impacts of this amendment. He warns, ``To proclaim democratic government to the rest of the world as the supreme form of government at the very moment we eliminate the most important avenue of relief from arbitrary governmental decision will not serve our interests in the larger world.''
Second, this legislation also includes a provision that would undermine a ban on torture by allowing testimony obtained by torture to be used to hold and to punish detainees. Both the House and the Senate have voted overwhelmingly in past weeks that our nation should prohibit the use of torture. We have agreed that the use of torture is antithetical to a moral nation and that it harms our reputation as the exemplar of democracy and freedom throughout the world. We have also heard from intelligence experts that information obtained in interrogations that use techniques like ``waterboarding'' or simulated drowning, often produce unreliable information. Yet, while this legislation condemns the use of torture on one hand, on the other hand it countenances the use of information obtained through torture to eliminate legal rights.
I urge my colleagues to reject these provisions in order to protect our time-tested judicial review process and to keep our commitment to end the use of torture.
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