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The US has been in a long slide towards empire for some time. As Stirling observed last week the torture bill, which essentially invalidates the parts of the bill of rights dealing with the rights of those accused of crimes, is part of that slide.
The trend line, and this has been going on for some time, and is not an artifact just of the last five years, nor just of the Republican party (though they have more proponents of it within their ranks) has been going on for at least thirty years and parts of it can be seen in the late sixties.
Its features are the imperial executive, the end of individual rights, the castration of Congress and the reduction of the power of the Courts.
The End of Individual Rights Under the new bill passed last week the President, largely at his discretion, can take any non citizen (including legal residents) and lock them up indefinitely without recourse to civilian courts by declaring them an enemy combatant. He can lock up citizens and the only recourse they have is to determine their combatant status, however you can become a combatant by an act as minor as having written a check. Once determined that a citizen is a combatant they lose the right to any further use of habeas corpus, the right to see the evidence against them, the right not to self incriminate, the right to a speedy trial, the right to safety against cruel and unusual punishment, the right to not be punished till guilt is determined in court, the right to counsel of their choice, the presumption of innocence and the right to a trial by a jury of their peers.
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