No place to write detention policy
Last week, in ruling on the merits of a detainee’s case, he issued a scathing indictment of the current litigation and an urgent plea for congressional participation in cases that “go to the heart of our judicial system.” “It is unfortunate,” he said in an oral opinion from the bench, “that the Legislative Branch of our government and the Executive Branch have not moved more strongly to provide uniform, clear rules and laws for handling these cases.” While allowing that the various judges were “working very hard and in good faith,” he lamented that “we have different rules and procedures being used by the judges,” as well as “different rules of evidence” and “a difference in substantive law.” For Judge Hogan, it all “highlights the need for a national legislative solution with the assistance of the Executive so that these matters are handled promptly and uniformly and fairly for all concerned.”
Congress Can Stop the KSM Trial; If the president will not reverse himself, Congress should
Now not only are we saddled with the relative leniency of the civilian legal process — civilian juries have failed to impose the death penalty in the country’s last two capital terrorism cases — but we also face the likelihood that KSM will seek to represent himself, as he did in the military commission. Why is that important? In military court, we had the capability of imposing on accused war criminals a military defense lawyer with an appropriate security clearance. Terrorists might have opted not to use these lawyers, but they had to accept them if they wanted their defense to have the benefit of access to relevant classified information. By contrast, in civilian court, a defendant has an absolute right to represent himself, a right the Supreme Court has long upheld. If the terrorists make this demand, they will have a very strong argument that civilian due process requires that they be given direct access to our intelligence.
Illinoisans to discuss merits of Gitmo transfers
Opponents and supporters of a plan to move up to 100 alleged terrorists to Illinois from Guantanamo Bay are preparing to address the first state legislative hearing [today] on the issue. Around 50 people are scheduled to testify at Tuesday’s hearing before the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. They include labor union officials who say selling the Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government to house detainees will create hundreds of jobs. Opponents scheduled to speak include conservative activist Beverly Perlson. She says U.S. Naval detention center in Cuba has worked well and that there’s no good reason to bring prisoners to the small northwestern Illinois community. The hearing is at a high school auditorium in Sterling, which is southeast of Thomson.
Importing Guantanamo suspects to Illinois won’t make us safer — by John Boehner
President Obama says the Guantanamo Bay prison is a rallying cry for our enemies, and closing it will help silence them. That certainly does not appear to have stopped Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested by federal authorities in September and charged with traveling to New York City carrying bombmaking instructions in his laptop. He allegedly trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan, where he received the bombmaking instructions, and later bought beauty supplies containing the raw materials for a bomb.
Human rights organization concerned about the fate of detainees who continue to be held with[out] charge
“The detainees who are currently scheduled to be relocated to Thomsom have not been charged with any crime. In seven years, the U.S. government including, the CIA and FBI, have not produced any evidence against these individuals that can be taken to a court of law.” “The only thing that President Obama is doing with this announcement is changing the Zip Code of Guantanamo.” [Editor -- These quotes are from a recent press release issued by Amnesty International. Since 9/11, our Supreme Court has affirmed that the Laws of War allow our nation to hold enemy combatants for the duration of the conflict and there is no requirement to charge captured enemies with a crime. Amnesty International believes those who wage unlawful warfare deserve greater protection than lawful warriors; federal trials for the 9/11 conspirators and mandating civil adjudication for who wage unlawful war is an extension of that thinking and recklessly endangers the civilian populaces of the world.]
Who are the Democrats Representing these Days?
On the terrorism front, Obama and the Democrats recently announced that the federal government will purchase a prison in Obama’s home state of Illinois and move GITMO prisoners into it. That would help fulfill Obama’s pledge of closing GITMO within one year after taking office. However, once again the American people are not in agreement with that decision. By a 64% to 30% margin, Americans oppose closing GITMO and transferring the prisoners currently housed there onto domestic soil.
As for having trials for those prisoners, most Americans disagree with Attorney General Eric Holder’s decisions to hold them in civilian courts rather than in military courts. Once again, the margin is not even very close with 59% favoring military courts while only 36% favoring the civilians courts.
