| Alpha | | Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 4:01 pm Post subject: Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan |
| Obama for Prolonged Detention (Rachel Maddow's MSNBC segment):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/30877514#30877514
Human Rights Attorney Vince Warren: Obama’s “Preventive Detention” Plan Goes Beyond Bush Admin Policies:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/22/vince_warren
Obama's civil liberties speech
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/21/obama/index.html
Sibel Edmonds: Two Sides of the Same Coin… Heads-Heads
http://edwardrynearson.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/sibel-edmonds-two-sides-of-the-same-coin-heads-heads/
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May 21, 2009
Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html
WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.
The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions — a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.
The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.
They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.
“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”
The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?”
Mr. Obama did not specify how he intended to deal with Guantánamo detainees who posed a threat and could not be tried, nor did he share the contents of Thursday’s speech, the participants said.
He will deliver the speech at a site laden with symbolism — the National Archives, home to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Across town, his biggest Republican critic, former Vice President Dick Cheney, will deliver a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.
Mr. Cheney and other hawkish critics have sought to portray Mr. Obama as weak on terror, and their argument seems to be catching on with the public. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, in a clear rebuke to the White House, blocked the $80 million Mr. Obama had requested in financing to close the Guantánamo prison.
The lawmakers say they want a detailed plan before releasing the money; there is deep opposition on Capitol Hill to housing terrorism suspects inside the United States.
“He needs to convince people that he’s got a game plan that will protect us as well as be fair to the detainees,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who agrees with Mr. Obama that the prison should be closed. “If he can do that, then we’re back on track. But if he doesn’t make that case, then we’ve lost control of this debate.”
But Mr. Obama will not use the speech to provide the details lawmakers want.
“What it’s not going to be is a prescriptive speech,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser. “The president wants to take some time and put this whole issue in perspective to identify what the challenges are and how he will approach dealing with them.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/politics/22obama.html?_r=1&hp
May 22, 2009
Obama Mounts Defense of Plans to Close Guantánamo
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON — Despite stiff resistance from Congress, President Obama said Thursday that he intended to transfer some detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to highly secure facilities inside the United States. He also proposed “prolonged detention” for terrorism suspects who cannot be tried, a problem he called “the toughest issue we face.”
In a speech at the National Archives here, Mr. Obama gave a full-throated defense of his antiterrorism policies and his commitment to closing the Guantánamo prison. With Republicans painting him as weak on terror, and Democrats increasingly nervous about transferring terrorism suspects to the United States, the White House sought to reclaim a debate over which even some of his allies said he had lost control.
“We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security,” Mr. Obama declared, adding, “As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.”
In describing his plans for the roughly 240 terrorism suspects still held at Guantánamo Bay, Mr. Obama accused his predecessor, George W. Bush, of having embarked on “a misguided experiment” that resulted in “a mess.”
He said there would be no danger in transferring detainees to “highly secure prisons” in this country, and pledged to seek trials for many in civilian or military courts. But he also said he would move to “construct a legitimate legal framework” to justify the detention of dangerous terrorism suspects who could not be tried or released, a proposal that is creating unease among human rights advocates who are among his staunchest backers.
Mr. Obama did not deliver his message in a vacuum. Just minutes after his speech, cable news programs turned their focus to a competing address being delivered by his staunchest Republican foe, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The dueling appearances amounted to real-time philosophical combat between competing national security visions, the debate Americans might have witnessed had Mr. Cheney run for president.
The setting of Mr. Obama’s address — the soaring marble and limestone rotunda of the Archives, where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are kept — was intended to underscore his main theme: that as commander in chief he can uphold American values while also protecting the nation’s security.
“I believe with every fiber of my being,” Mr. Obama said, “that in the long run we cannot also keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values.”
But Mr. Cheney, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of conservative thought, put forth another worldview, in which security is paramount.
“In the fight against terrorism,” the former vice president said, “there is no middle ground, and half measures keep you half exposed.”
The back-to-back speeches brought to life the broad and very difficult questions facing Mr. Obama as he tries to live up to his pledge to shut the Guantánamo prison by January and at the same time rewrite the legal framework established by Mr. Bush for imprisoning and trying terrorism suspects.
Among those questions is whether bringing to the United States those Guantánamo detainees who could not be released to their home countries would make Americans less secure. Mr. Obama quoted Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, in saying that “the idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.”
But critics warn that housing dangerous terrorism suspects in United States prisons would make those facilities, and the communities surrounding them, vulnerable to attack; could allow militants a chance to plot strategy on American soil; and could open the way for militants to stay in the country, if they were acquitted at trial.
“I think the president will find, upon reflection,” Mr. Cheney warned Thursday, “that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.”
A second issue is whether to try the detainees in American courts. Mr. Obama said Thursday that he would do so “whenever feasible,” citing the cases of two other terrorists — Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, and Zacarias Moussaoui, identified as the 20th Sept. 11 hijacker — who are serving life sentences in prison after being convicted in the United States.
But critics say there is a risk that classified information would be made public in such criminal trials, a danger that David B. Rivkin, an official in the Reagan Justice Department, calls “the conviction price.” Mr. Obama said that military commissions, which allow defendants fewer rights, would be the “appropriate venue” for the trials of at least some detainees.
Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted.
The answer proposed by Mr. Obama would write an entirely new chapter in American law to permit “prolonged detention” — just as at Guantánamo, but with oversight by the courts and Congress. Human rights advocates express outrage at that approach, however, saying it would violate the very civil liberties Mr. Obama, a former lecturer on constitutional law, has vowed to protect.
“It is very troubling that he is intent on codifying in legislation the Bush policies of indefinite detention without charge,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said after the speech. “That simply flies in the face of established American legal principle.”
As he moves ahead, Mr. Obama must still persuade lawmakers to release the $80 million he has requested to close the Guantánamo prison. On a vote of 86 to 3 Thursday night, the Senate, like the House earlier, passed a war financing bill without that $80 million, which Congress has said it will not give him until he provides a more detailed plan. Thursday’s speech did not appear to change that.
“We’ve received today a broad vision from President Obama, and it’s important that he did that,” said the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. “We’re all awaiting the details of this plan, and he’s going to come up with one.”
Mr. Obama ran for office on a promise of restoring America’s moral standing in the world by rejecting Mr. Bush’s policies. But as president he has found that doing so is fraught with political peril. He used Thursday’s speech to explain a string of controversial national security decisions, including the apparent contradiction between withholding photos showing abuse of detainees and the release of classified memorandums about interrogation.
The president said he was trying to strike a balance between transparency and national security.
“I ran for president promising transparency, and I meant what I said,” he declared, adding, “But I have never argued — and I never will — that our most sensitive national security matters are an open book.”
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Obama's proposed Guantanamo legal plan rife with problems,
By Marisa Taylor and Michael Doyle, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu May 21, 6:16 pm ET
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama raised more questions than he answered Thursday when it comes to the legal prospects for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
While politicians have been most concerned that detainees not be transferred to prisons in the United States , the truly thorny legal quandary involves how to form new military commissions or how to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely without violating U.S or international laws.
Detainees could be placed on one of four different tracks: They could be released or transferred to other countries, tried in federal courts, charged before newly comprised military commissions or indefinitely detained because they cannot be prosecuted and "pose a clear danger."
But many legal experts said Obama still must offer more concrete details on how his sweeping plan would work.
"There's nothing on the table yet," said Duke Law School Professor Madeline Morris . "There are major issues that still need to be resolved."
By prosecuting some in federal court, the administration will continue to confront the possibility that the strongest evidence against a detainee is a confession obtained either through torture or illegal duress.
Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has retained the concept of a military commission. As Obama said Thursday, these commissions will try those who "violate the laws of war."
Obama has proposed tightening some of the commission standards; including, for instance, banning the use of statements "that have been obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods." Obama further stated Thursday that defendants will have "greater latitude in selecting their own counsel and more protections if they refuse to testify."
Even so, Morris noted that "we don't know what the configuration" of the military commissions will be, and retired Air Force colonel Scott Silliman noted that Obama's stated revisions don't answer myriad procedural questions like: Will defendants be permitted to choose a foreign attorney.
"If you have a conviction, where will you confine them?" added Silliman, who is now the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke Law School . "And if they are acquitted, what do you do with them?"
The administration's suggestion that the commissions might need newly devised hearsay rules also raises "red flags," said Karen Greenberg , executive director of New York University's Center on Law and Security.
But most troubling of all to experts is the president's proposal of "preventive" detention, or indefinitely imprisoning people who cannot be tried in military or federal courts. The method is reminiscent of Bush's, raises the same legal questions, and probably would not pass muster with the Supreme Court , experts said.
"To create a preventive detention statute would simply be to take Guantanamo move it on shore and cloak it in the veneer of legality," said Shayana Kadidal , a senior attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights , which represents Guantanamo detainees.
Such a system would have all the same problems, including a high error rate because its hard to know what someone is going to do in the future based on what they've done in the past. "There's also a tremendous incentive for politicians to over-detain because then their mistakes on the detention side are hidden," Kadidal said.
Robert Turner , a Vietnam veteran and associate director of the University of Virginia's Center for National Security Law , noted that Article 97 of the Third Geneva Convention provides that "prisoners of war shall not in any case be transferred to penitentiary establishments . . . to undergo disciplinary punishment therein."
"It is clear al Qaida detainees do not qualify for the full protections
(of the Geneva Conventions), but if we are treating this as a Law of Armed Conflict setting, we ought to be sensitive to the principles embodied in international law," Turner said.
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Judge says US can hold detainees indefinitely
By NEDRA PICKLER – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge says the United States can continue to hold some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without any charges.
U.S. District Judge John Bates' opinion issued Tuesday night limited the Obama administration's definition of who can be held. But he said Congress in the days after Sept. 11, 2001 gave the president the authority to hold anyone involved in planning, aiding or carrying out the terrorist attacks.
Bates' opinion comes amid increasing debate over whether President Barack Obama is going to release anyone from Guantanamo. Obama has promised to close the prison by January, but Senate Democrats say they will block the move until he comes up with a plan for the detainees.
Bates' opinion came in the case of several Guantanamo prisoners who are challenging their detention. ACLU attorney Jonathan Hafetz said the opinion "flouts the Constitution's prohibition against indefinite detention without charge."
"The decision wrongly concludes that terrorism suspects at Guantanamo may continue to languish in military detention rather than being prosecuted in our civilian courts," Hafetz said. "Like the president's recent decision to revive military commissions, this ruling perpetuates rather than ends the failed experiment in lawlessness that is Guantanamo."
Earlier this year, Bates ordered the Obama administration to give its definition of whom the United States can continue to hold at Guantanamo. The administration responded with a definition that was largely similar to the Bush administration's, drawing criticism from human rights advocates.
In his opinion, Bates said he agreed with the Obama administration that "the president has the authority to detain persons that the president determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks.
"The president also has the authority to detain persons who are or were part of Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed (i.e., directly participated in) a belligerent act in aid of such enemy armed forces," Bates wrote.
But he said the Obama administration went beyond the law of war by including in its definition those who "supported" enemy forces.
"The court can find no authority in domestic law or the law of war, nor can the government point to any, to justify the concept of 'support' as a valid ground for detention," Bates wrote.
Last month, Bates ruled that prisoners at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan can challenge their detention, for the first time extending rights given to Guantanamo Bay detainees elsewhere in the world.
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Why Liberals Love Obama:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/05/21/why-liberals-love-obama/
Ron Paul 5/14/09 "We Are Escalating War/We Are Less Safe":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJb05Sbupt0 | |
