Lieberman: Strip accused terrorists of American citizenship.

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Joe Lieberman (Quisling-CT) thinks American citizens should be stripped of their citizenship and constitutional rights if they are accused of being a terrorist.

Some of us have started to talk about it here, which is that there is an existing law – which hasn’t been much used – that says if an American citizen is shown to be fighting in a military force that is an enemy of the United States, then that person loses their citizenship and they no longer have the rights of citizenship. That’s an old law that was adopted during a very different time of conflict.

I think it’s time for us to look at whether we want to amend that law to apply it to American citizens who choose to become affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations, whether they should not also be deprived automatically of their citizenship, and therefore be deprived of rights that come with that citizenship when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act.

Lieberman’s suggestion goes much further than the Alien and Sedition Acts signed into law by John Adams during the undeclared “Quasi-War” against the French.

Of course, Lieberman and McCain have legislation waiting in the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.  The text of the bill is contained in that link.  Read it and weep.

As Glenn Greenwald noted:

It’s probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act.  It literally empowers the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect — including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil.  The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,” which everyone expects to last decades, at least.  It’s basically a bill designed to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to American citizen Jose Padilla — arrest him on U.S. soil and imprison him for years in military custody with no charges.

Update:

Big Tent Democrat cuts another facet on Lieberman’s intellectual diamond:

What is amazing about Lieberman’ fascist proposal is that it will not work even on Lieberman’s terms. Presumably, to strip a “suspected terrorist” of his citizenship, you’ll have to prove in a court of law that the suspected terrorist is actually a, you know, terrorist. And in proving it, you’ll have to respect the Constitution, which sort of defeats the purpose of Lieberman’s proposal. Not only is Lieberman a despicable human being, he is really as dumb as a rock. He and McCain are truly two of the stupidest people in Washington, which is saying a lot.

Note: Lieberman’s proposal to strip citizenship is not the same as the proposal put forth in Lieberman’s Enemy Belligerent Act, which only arbitrarily takes away all your rights without stripping citizenship.