Jerry Nadler: “the radical nature of this bill is that, as the gentleman from Michigan said, anybody picked up in Chicago can be…”

“the radical nature of this bill is that, as the gentleman from Michigan said, anybody picked up in Chicago can be subject to this bill. The President can determine unilaterally, look at paragraph 1 on page 3, that someone is an unlawful enemy combatant, or they can put the person before a tribunal, paragraph 2 on page 3, to decide if he is an enemy combatant. But you don't have to have a tribunal. A little later it says that military tribunals are not subject to the speedy trial rule. So someone can be determined by the executive branch to be an unlawful enemy combatant, someone in America, never have a trial, never go before a combat status review tribunal, never go before a military commission, have none of the rights everybody is talking about, and be held in jail forever. That is wrong. Secondly, the gentleman who was debating me before said soldiers have never had rights to habeas corpus. Certainly, if you pick up someone on the battlefield with a rifle in his arms, he shouldn't have habeas corpus. But if you pick up somebody in Chicago or New York or Los Angeles, who is to say that person is an unlawful enemy combatant?”