From article titled "What Other Surprises will Obama Show Us?"

3-9-2009 National:

Comes this on the Adam Walsh Act:

The Military Commissions Act was not the only, or even the first, congressional assault on the habeas corpus guarantee. An earlier, and more damaging, attack came in the form of the "Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006," which permits the open-ended "civil confinement" of those who are designated "sexually dangerous persons" (a category that sounds a lot like the old Soviet concept of "socially dangerous persons").

"Civil confinement" is a variation on "civil commitment," under which the several states, acting on the malevolent doctrine of parens patriae (the "parenthood" of the state), institutionalize the mentally ill for treatment.

As the Soviets demonstrated through their use of psychiatry as an enforcement arm of the State (the assumption being that only the mentally ill would dissent from the Party-ordained consensus), this practice is pregnant with awful abuses, one of which is its subtle expansion to include sex offenders who have served their allotted sentences but are still confined to state custody.

Massachusetts recently became the first state to have a "sexually dangerous person" civilly committed to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons under the Adam Walsh Act. In principle, this amounts to a life sentence inflicted, "Minority Report" style, for hypothetical crimes yet to be committed.

In January, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the federal civil confinement of sex offenders on narrowly federalist grounds. That court quite properly pointed out that Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority by creating a federal system of civil confinement.

But the deeper question; can any government, state or federal, simply amend a court-prescribed punishment into a life sentence; was left untouched by that court?

The issue is headed to the Supreme Court and, once again, the Obama/Holder "Justice" Department has adopted the perspective of the Bush administration on this issue, namely that the end of a prison term doesn't necessarily mean the end of an individual's imprisonment. I certainly hope I am not the only person bothered by that type of incarceration? ..News Source.. by Dorsett Bennett Salem-News.com