Discussion on the Constitution

[Trassin]

I was reading through the constitution and found myself asking a question.


Congress shall have the power... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water...

We are all very familiar with the first part (or at least I hope so). The second part is a little less common but still very straight forward. The part that I'm interested in discussion is "make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water".

My plain text understanding of this is that Congress gets to determined what is done with anything or anyone captured on land or sea. Assuming that why can't congress simply order the military to stop using secret prisons, torture, and holding prisoners indefinitely? In addition to that why can't the president be impeached for superseding congress's authority in this matter and thus violating constitutional law?

[jonahtrainer]

I was reading through the constitution and found myself asking a question.



We are all very familiar with the first part (or at least I hope so). The second part is a little less common but still very straight forward. The part that I'm interested in discussion is "make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water".

My plain text understanding of this is that Congress gets to determined what is done with anything or anyone captured on land or sea. Assuming that why can't congress simply order the military to stop using secret prisons, torture, and holding prisoners indefinitely? In addition to that why can't the president be impeached for superseding congress's authority in this matter and thus violating constitutional law?

That phrase has nothing to do with prisoners. It has to do with ships and cargo. Who gets to keep the Pirate's loot!

But with your other questions we basically have a king not a president. They could impeach if they had the spine. Many of these are 'political questions' and the Supreme Court won't really touch them. You are seeing the checks and balances at work.

[Trassin]

That phrase has nothing to do with prisoners. It has to do with ships and cargo. Who gets to keep the Pirate's loot!

Where does that come from? Can you give me a reference. As far as I know the Federalist Papers don't say exactly what they were taking about in that portion of the constitution. It's not that I don't believe you, I just like to have references to back up my arguments.

[jonahtrainer]

Where does that come from? Can you give me a reference. As far as I know the Federalist Papers don't say exactly what they were taking about in that portion of the constitution. It's not that I don't believe you, I just like to have references to back up my arguments.

Gah, make me do some research. The General Smith (17 US 438 (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=17&invol=438), 1819) lays out some of the major issues of the time and is a very short read. Basically a suit for libel brought in rem (as opposed to in personam) for a ship and the big issue, in more than one way, is Jurisdiction (as it was at the time).

This is a fairly obtuse area of International Law. Answers.com (http://www.answers.com/topic/admiralty-and-maritime-law?cat=biz-fin) has an overview. That should point you in the right direction.

I do find it fairly humorous that Ron Paul thinks we should take our marching orders from the Constitution but he hasn't put forward any plan with how to do with the Nine Rulers! Not even the Founding Fathers had any good idea what to do.

[Trassin]

Thanks