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Agamben on the concept of the ban and the consecration of homo sacer... this comes out of his book, "The State of Exception" and elaborates on the history of this concept whereby something is both made sacred and yet thereby both excluded from the protections of divine law as well as those of civil and state law (homo sacer is that being who is declared sacred and may not be sacrificed while existing under the unconditional exposure to death). however, here he connects this to a contrary movement of profanation.

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Boo-yakah-sha. Subtract a little liberal sentimentality and this would sum up at least half of the ironies of the military commissions act.

i apologize for the dead link to the goverment page on the senate decision. wikipedia to the rescue...

Welcome to the State of Exception. The suspension of habeas corpus is a fundamental tactic to detach criminality from any reference to anything actual. Fact and right, for prisoners of the war on terrorism, have been indefinitely suspended. Defendents have neither access to the evidence against them nor, upon conviction, the right to a retrial. With the concept of precedent now annulled from law, the state of seige becomes time itself.