The MCA authorizes the use of evidence obtained through “coercion” (aka torture) to be used in U.S. military tribunals to secure convictions

• The MCA allows detainees to be subjected to stress positions, temperature extremes, sleep deprivation, and possibly waterboardin.
• Any “evidence” obtained through these practices would be deemed admissible in proceedings of U.S. military tribunals according to the terms of the MC.

The MCA allows the President to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, without charge by designating them as “enemy combatants” or “unlawful enemy combatants”

The MCA authorizes the suspension of habeas corpus for non-citizens, including lawful permanent residents, who are in U.S. custody

• The MCA subjects legal U.S. residents, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention, with no hope of appeal.
• The MCA  attempts to legalize the existence of U.S. detention centers such as Guantánamo—detention centers that have been outright condemned by the U.N. and the International Red Cross as being in absolute violation of international law
• The MCA authorizes retroactive immunity for U.S. military and intelligence officials for abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and secret CIA facilities
  

The MCA introduces definitions of rape and sexual assault that water down well-established standards of international law

• The MCA ignores recent advances in international law that recognize that rape and sexual violence can be perpetrated not just through force but through any type of situation that negates consent on the part of the victim
• The MCA uses an older and more narrow definition of sexual assault by requiring “sexual contact” between the perpetrator and the victim
• This narrower definition of sexual assault would exclude acts such as forced nakedness, forced sexual entertainment, or practices witnessed at Abu Ghraib such as piling naked prisoners on top of one another or forcing prisoners to strip and wear female underwear on their head.