Chris Dodd Targets the Military Commissions Act

Via Brother Neal, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is introducing the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act, which:

• Restores Habeas Corpus protections to detainees
• Narrows the definition of unlawful enemy combatant to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States who are not lawful combatants
• Bars information gained through coercion from being introduced as evidence in trials
• Empowers military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable
• Authorizes the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to review decisions by the Military commissions
• Limits the authority of the President to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and makes that authority subject to congressional and judicial oversight
• Provides for expedited judicial review of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to determine the constitutionally of its provisions

R. Neal also astutely points out that such a proposal might have made a difference for Harold Ford, Jr.'s election returns:

If Harold Ford Jr. had proposed something like this instead of voting for the Military Commissions act and against gay marriage, maybe more of the 600,000 Tennessee Democrats who stayed home would have gotten to the polls. Maybe even 50,000 or so of them.

It definitely would have made me check the box by Ford's name.