Obama: Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects

Friday, June 26, 2009; 6:52 PM

White House Is Drafting Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said. LINK

This is just SO WRONG.

Doesn't matter who does it, it's totally completely wrong wrong wrong.

Eric Holder says it's necessary, because some of the Gitmo detainees are simply too dangerous to ever be allowed to walk free. Because of what they know in the areas of chemical and biological weapons and/or bomb making. Because of the damage they could potentially do.

Lost in all of this? Obama still has the legal option to keep Gitmo open. They carefully crafted the legislation, to give him a loophole. Bet on it still being open, just to house these ones deemed too dangerous to ever let go. They gotta keep 'em somewhere.

Then we should charge them for their crimes.

Allowing our government to imprison people without charge, and to permanently imprison them based on their POTENTIAL to do harm is wrong, totally WRONG.

The next step if we allow this to happen to aliens is that American citizens will find themselves imprisoned for their potential to do harm, too.

Maybe Obama won't take that step, but eventually some disaster or terrorist attack will be so bad that some administration will decide that we must imprison potential threats and then we will no longer be a nation of citizens, we will have become a nation of prisoners.

If they are dangerous terrorists but then on trial,convict and execute them. I dont have a problem with that. Indefinite detention w/o trial is just plain wrong

WEDNESDAY JULY 8, 2009 08:09 EDT
The Obama justice system

Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified. As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial. About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective." Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt: "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention."

In June, Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked by ABC News' Jake Tapper whether accused Terrorists who were given a trial and were acquitted would be released as a result of the acquittal, but Gibbs -- amazingly -- refused to make that commitment. But this is the first time an Obama official has affirmatively stated that they have the "post-acquittal detention" power (and, to my knowledge, the Bush administration never claimed the power to detain someone even if they were acquitted)....

Exactly. Show trials are exactly what the Obama administration is planning. In its own twisted way, the Bush approach was actually more honest and transparent: they made no secret of their belief that the President could imprison anyone he wanted without any process at all. That's clearly the Obama view as well, but he's creating an elaborate, multi-layered, and purely discretionary "justice system" that accomplishes exactly the same thing while creating the false appearance that there is due process being accorded. And for those who -- to justify what Obama is doing -- make the not unreasonable point that Bush left Obama with a difficult quandary at Guantanamo, how will that excuse apply when these new detention powers are applied not only to existing Guantanamo detainees but to future (i.e., not-yet-abducted) detainees as well?

Whatever else is true, even talking about imprisoning people based on accusations of which they have been exonerated is a truly grotesque perversion of everything that our justice system and Constitution are supposed to guarantee. That's one of those propositions that ought to be too self-evident to need stating.
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Several related points: Spencer also notes that Johnson testified yesterday about the possibility that Guantanamo might remain open beyond January, 2010 -- the date Obama, to much fanfare, established as the deadline for closing that prison. That decision is one of the very few to which Obama defenders can cling in order to claim there are significant differences between his approach to these issues and the Bush/Cheney approach. ...