Bill Goodman, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in Manhattan and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild, will speak Dec. 6, at Manhattanville College in Purchase about the Military Commissions Act.

The act, which President Bush signed in October, has been called unconstitutional and un-American by many civil libertarians.

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the new law strips non-citizens of the right to seek review of their detention by a court through the filing of a writ of habeas corpus, the cornerstone of Western justice that since 1215 has protected people from arbitrary detention, disappearance and indefinite detention without charge.

Goodman said hundreds of habeas corpus petitions that the center and others have brought on behalf of many of the 450 men still held at Guantanamo Bay, are now in danger. Recent reports of innocent men being released from Guantanamo underscore the importance of moving quickly to defeat this law, he said.

“From Afghanistan to Spain and Germany to Pakistan, innocent men have been returned home to their families,” Goodman said. “We know, as does the Bush Administration, that many more of the roughly 450 men still held at Guantánamo are also innocent. To deny them the right to make their case and to win their freedom, is not only immoral and illegal, but undermines the concepts of liberty and democracy that this country was built on.”

The act also dramatically expands the President’s powers, permitting him to determine what constitutes torture and who may be labeled an “unlawful enemy combatant” and therefore detained indefinitely, Goodman said.

Once in U.S. custody, the law allows detainees to be subjected to stress positions, temperature extremes, sleep deprivation, and possibly waterboarding, Goodman said. It also defines sexual violence crimes so narrowly that some of the outrages of Abu Ghraib, such as forced nudity, would not be punishable, and defines rape and sexual abuse in a manner that is inconsistent with international law, turning back the clock on the hard-fought victories of survivors of sexual violence. At the same time, the bill provides retroactive immunity for U.S military and intelligence officials for the torture and abuse of detainees, including the widely condemned horrors which occurred at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, he said.

The free seminar Wednesday is open to the public. It will be held at 7 p.m. at Reid Castle on the Manhattanville campus. For more information call (914) 323-7156.