With both the House of Representatives and the Senate passing the innocuously named Military Commissions Act of 2006, the U.S. government has thrown the ideal of inalienable rights out the window.

On June 29, the Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the military commission used to prosecute suspected terrorists after 9/11 violate the Geneva Conventions, U.S military law and other articles of war. In response, congressional Republicans carefully worded the Military Commissions Act in an attempt to keep the Supreme Court from further meddling in the Bush administration’s execution of the “war on terror.”

The act gives the president the power, through a tribunal made up of officers of the armed forces, to declare a person an unlawful enemy combatant. The tribunals will not be open to judicial review, and these same tribunals will have the ability to “prescribe any punishment … including the penalty of death” as long as they do not violate the laws of war under the Geneva Conventions.

However, the act proceeds to rewrite those laws: Illegal enemy combatants will not have the right of habeas corpus, or to invoke any section of the Geneva Conventions, not just those sections that apply to prisoners of war. Additionally, the bill redefines torture in such a fashion as to allow the president to decide what constitutes torture, permitting acts such as water boarding, where a cloth is held over the face of a victim and water poured on it to give the impression of imminent drowning.

A military judge can allow evidence gained in this fashion as long as he deems it reliable, in the best interests of justice and that it was not obtained through torture (which, with water boarding as an acceptable technique, holds little weight).

The bill even opens the door to subjecting enemy combatants to unforced sex acts, because it only includes the use of coercion, force or threat of force on the victim in its definition of rape and sexual assault.

The potential effects of the Military Commissions Act are disturbing. Interpreted in the broadest sense, it allows the president to declare any person an enemy combatant, then incarcerate and torture that person without any legal recourse. And while it is highly unlikely that the United States will devolve into such a tyranny, this law provides the legal foundation for it to happen.

Certainly, there is merit to some of the measures included in the bill. Allowing the government to keep secret the identity of an informant in the trial of an al Qaeda leader could very well mean the difference between life and death for that informant, as well as preserving a source of potentially life-saving intelligence.

But other parts of the bill are draconian in nature and fly in the face of evidence suggesting that the measures are ineffective, such as allowing the use of certain forms of coercion. Many members of the military and various intelligence agencies contend that using harsh interrogation techniques on prisoners can get “anyone to confess to anything if the torture’s bad enough,” said retired CIA officer Bob Bauer in a Nov. 18, 2005 ABC broadcast. Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, a CIA prisoner subjected to harsh interrogation techniques culminating in water boarding, made claims that the Iraqi government had trained al Qaeda operatives to use biological and chemical weapons. The CIA later discovered that al Libbi’s statements were false, and that he made them only to avoid further such treatment.

Additionally, the United States must retain the moral high ground in the war on terror. One of the keys to winning this war is the destruction of the enemy’s base of support. This is not limited to physical destruction; making the terrorists’ supporters turn against them through propaganda or other means is just as valuable. Using torture and abuse damages U.S credibility, and makes destroying the enemy’s base of support more difficult.

Even ignoring the multitude of arguments against torture or torture-like interrogation techniques, there is also the question of American rights and values. During the Revolutionary War, while the English committed atrocities upon American prisoners rotting on prison ships, American forces generally refrained from exacting similar vengeance upon their captives.

John Adams wrote, “I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won’t prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed.”

The last time the United States sacrificed the right to habeas corpus was in the Civil War, when its survival was at stake. Even then, habeas corpus was suspended only in certain states deemed to be at the greatest risk of defection to the Confederacy. Do terrorists in Third World countries honestly pose the same level of threat to the existence of the United States?

Most importantly, suspending constitutional rights and condoning the use of torture would destroy everything our forefathers stood for, fought for and died for. From the Civil War, when we confronted Confederate rebellion, to World War II, when we confronted Nazi genocide, to the Cold War, when we confronted the Communist police states, the advancement of freedom and human rights has been one of America’s guiding principles and the reason we fought.

In our struggle against terrorism today, we must not forget what makes us a better people than the terrorists. Hollow proclamations of freedom and human rights do not automatically make us right; we must practice those values as well. Only through the preservation and advancement of our most sacred standards can we achieve victory.