Give Terrorists Constitutional Rights, Says Obama Administration

WEDNESDAY JULY 8, 2009 08:09 EDT
The Obama justice system
(updated below - Update II)
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).
All of this underscores what has clearly emerged as the core "principle" of Obama justice when it comes to accused Terrorists -- namely, "due process" is pure window dressing with only one goal: to ensure that anyone the President wants to keep imprisoned will remain in prison. They'll create various procedures to prettify the process, but the outcome is always the same -- ongoing detention for as long as the President dictates. This is how I described it when Obama first unveiled his proposal of preventive detention:...

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.
* * * * *
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. ....

But if acquitted they still may not be released. As Greenwald points out, this is less transparent than Bush. Indeed, even the closing of Gitmo is just more positive action of muddying the waters:

The Obama justice system - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Just another problem you run into when you take prisoners... Let's set them on fire and hang them over the side of a bridge like they did with one of our soldiers. Maybe even cut their heads off like they did with some of the others. They have been well fed and well housed. Now, let's execute them.

Just another problem you run into when you take prisoners... Let's set them on fire and hang them over the side of a bridge like they did with one of our soldiers. Maybe even cut their heads off like they did with some of the others. They have been well fed and well housed. Now, let's execute them.

I think the guys we have left in custody are very dangerous people. I think we did hold some guys for way too long that were not dangerous and not even guilty of anything except being in the wrong place. Did they ever find a place to send those Chinese guys we were holding? That was pretty fucked up.

At any rate, the ones we have left have to be dealt with. I am praying for some sort of accident or disaster. Maybe they could accidentally escape into Cuba and some Cuban authorities could be accidentally waiting for them to climb over the fence. I bet Cuban prison is nice in July.

Or maybe there will be a hurricane. Or a plane crash.

But in all likelyhood, these few guys we have left will never be free. They are the worst of the worst. I don't want to see them treated unfairly, not because of their rights, but because of mine. If you take their rights, you can take mine too. So, find a way to get these guys settled in a new prison home and be done with it.

So now we have the Obamabots-and I use that only because it's the only term that fits-arguing for the government to 'kill' the prisoners who are the same folks that a mere 6 months ago were 'political prisoners' being denied due process.

Beg to differ--we had up to several hundreds of them, yet the number drops every couple of months.

We may not havee the Mastermind any more come 2012. Something really horrendous has been going on since Gitmo's inception. This is in reference to who we have and how we obtain them. Not the "Humane Waterboarding"(which you would become outraged by if it happened to your kid), mind you.

You may have a point.

If we killed the ones that surrendered, such a problem would not arise. So why not kill them and do not take prisoners??

They wish to be martyred anyway, so let them have their virgins ...what good that will do them if they are dead.