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TechnoratiWhite House Is Drafting Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention; Move Would Bypass Congress
The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate suspected terrorists indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
![[In this pool photo, reviewed by the U.S. military, and shot through glass, a guard watches over Guantanamo detainees inside the exercise yard at Camp 5 detention facility at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, on May 31, 2009. (Brennan Linsley/AFP/Getty Images)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/guantanamo-1_5.jpg "guantanamo-1.jpg")
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.
After months of internal debate over how to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House officials are growing increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may prove impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president's January 2010 deadline.
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt did not directly respond to questions about an executive order but said the administration would address the cases of Guantanamo detainees in a manner "consistent with the national security interests of the United States and the interests of justice."
One administration official suggested the White House was already trying to build support for an executive order.
"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order can be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should either be prosecuted or released.
The Justice Department has declined comment on the prospects for a long-term detention system while internal reviews of Guantanamo detainees are underway. The reviews are expected to be completed by July 21.
In a May speech , President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention and suggested that it would include congressional and judicial oversight. "We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the Executive Branch decide alone," the president said.
Some of Obama's top legal advisers, along with a handful of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have pushed for the creation of a "national security court" to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried.
But the three senior government officials said the White House has turned away from that option, at least for now, because legislation establishing a special court would be both difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama's own party. These officials, as well as others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.
On the day Obama took office, 242 men were imprisoned at Guantanamo. In his May speech, the president outlined five strategies the administration would use to deal with them: criminal trials, revamped military tribunals, transfers to other countries, releases and continued detention.
Since the inauguration, 11 detainees have been released or transferred, one prisoner committed suicide and one was moved to New York to face terrorism charges in federal court.
Administration officials said the cases of about half of the remaining 229 detainees have been reviewed for prosecution or release. Two officials involved in a Justice Department review of possible prosecutions said the administration is strongly considering criminal charges in federal court for Khaled Sheik Mohammed and three other detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The other half, the officials said, present the greatest difficulty because these detainees cannot be prosecuted either in federal court or military commissions. In many cases, the evidence against them is classified, has been provided by foreign intelligence services, or has been tainted by the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques.
Attorney General Eric Holder agreed with an assessment offered during congressional testimony this month that fewer than 25 percent of the detainees would be charged in criminal courts and that 50 others have been approved for transfer or release. One official said the administration is still hoping that as many as 70 Yemeni citizens will be moved, in stages, into a rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia.
Three months into the Justice Department's reviews, several officials involved said they have found themselves agreeing with conclusions reached years earlier by the Bush administration: As many as 90 detainees can not be charged or released.
The White House has spent months meeting with key congressional leaders in the hopes of reaching agreement on long-term detention, even as public support for such a plan has wavered as lawmakers have sought to prevent detainees from being transferred to their home states.
Lawyers for the administration are now in negotiations with Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., over separate legislation that would revamp military commissions. A senior Republican staff member said that senators have yet to see "a comprehensive, detailed policy" on long-term detention from the administration.
"They can do it without congressional backing, but I think there would be very strong concerns," the staff member said, adding that "Congress could cut off funding" for any detention system established in the United States.
Concerns are growing among Obama's advisers that Congress may try to assert too much control over the process. Earlier this week, Obama signed an appropriations bill that forces the administration to report to Congress before moving any detainee out of Guantanamo and prevents the White House from using available funds to move detainees onto U.S. soil.
"Legislation could kill Obama's plans," said one government official involved. The official said an executive order could be the best option for the president at this juncture.
Under one White House draft that was being discussed earlier this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil, but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review. U.S. citizens would not be held in the system. (Last month, ProPublica explored the key issues around preventive detention .)
Such detainees -- those at Guantanamo and those who may be captured in the future -- would also have the right to legal representation during confinement and access to some of the information that is being used to keep them behind bars. Anyone detained under this order would have a right to challenge his detention before a judge.
Officials argue that the plan would give detainees more rights and allow them a better chance to one day end their indefinite incarceration than they have now at Guantanamo.
But some senior Democrats see long-term detention as tantamount to reestablishing the Guantanamo system on U.S. soil. "I think this could be a very big mistake, because of how such a system could be perceived throughout the world," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told Holder.
One administration official said future transfers to the United States for long-term detention would be rare. Al-Qaida operatives captured on the battlefield, which the official defined as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly the Horn of Africa, would be held in battlefield facilities. Suspects captured elsewhere in the world could be transferred to the United States for federal prosecution, turned over to local authorities, or returned to their home country.
"Going forward, unless it's an extraordinary case, you will not see new transfers to the U.S. for indefinite detention," the official said.
Instituting long-term detention through an executive order would leave Obama vulnerable to charges that he is willing to forsake the legislative branch of government, as his predecessor often did. Bush's detention policies suffered successive defeats in the courts in part because they lacked congressional approval and tried to exclude judicial oversight.
"There is no statute prohibiting the president from doing this through executive order and so far courts have not ruled in ways that would bar him from doing so," said Matthew Waxman, who worked on detainee issues at the Defense Department during Bush's first term. But Waxman, who waged an internal battle inside the Bush administration for more congressional cooperation, said the "courts are more likely to defer to the president and legislative branch when they speak with one voice on these issues."
Walid bin Attash, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and who was held at a secret CIA prison, could be among those subject to long-term detention, according to one senior official.
Little information on bin Attash's case has been made public, but officials who have reviewed his file said the Justice Department has concluded that none of the three witnesses against him can be brought to testify in court. One witness, who was jailed in Yemen, escaped several years ago. A second witness remains incarcerated, but the government of Yemen will not allow him to testify.
Administration officials believe that testimony from the only witness in U.S. custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, may be inadmissible because he was subjected to harsh interrogation while in CIA custody.
"These issues haven't morphed simply because the administration changed," said Juan Zarate, who served as Bush's deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"The challenge for the new administration is how to solve these legal question of preventive detention in a way that is consistent with the Constitution, legitimate in the eyes of the world and doesn't create security loopholes that causes Congress to worry," Zarate said.
Washington Post staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
72 Comments so far
Show AllOBAMA you Obismal PIECE OF SHIT. At least Cheney and the Chimp were up front about being our enemies. You are worse.
oBOMBa doesn't have to do an end run around Congress, there's a giant hole right up the middle, they won't even notice.
Congress seems to be nearly full of giant holes.
holes or ass holes?
We do not know anything about the prisoners at Gitmo. I will never understand why some are held while others have been released. Who is investigating this mystery. Was the Bush Administration bribed or intimidated by the Saudi Leaders when the prisoners who were released, returned to terrorism, as the Bush people proclaim? Were they the ones who were rehabilitated by being given a car, house, job, a wife by the Saudi's so they would not return to terrorism? Almost all the terrorist on 9-11 were Saudi citizens I wonder if they had secret trials to be freed while others remained imprisoned.
In the trial against an Iraqi born, Muslim friend of mine ,jst after 9-11 in which, although he was listed as a terrorist by Ashcroft and Pataki in the media, he was not allowed to defend himself, since the word terrorism was forbidden to be spoken in the courtroom.I don't have much hope for any Muslim suspect
The United States was paying a ransom for anyone to turn in anyone who might be an enemy......what they got was anyone.
Imagine, you can't bring most of the Gitmo Prisoners to trial because you can not prove that they did anything......And, if you have held them without "Just Cause" and tortured them, you, then are the criminal....
Al Qaeda was recruited, trained, armed, supplied, and paid by the United States and Saudi Arabia and to this day is still supported by Saudi Arabia (Why would you bow to the King of Saudi Arabia?)........Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Many of the Saudi Terrorists of 9/11 were given Visas by the CIA in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia........There was a financial link between the San Diego terrorists and a Saudi Spy and a Saudi Princess....(Philip Shenon, "The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission")
The CIA was practicing "Brainwashing" on every one of their torture victims....They wanted those "Victims" to confess to things they knew nothing about.....It was just an updated version of the CIA experiments of the 50's and 60's.
If I am fighting against an "Invasion and Occupation Force", shouldn't I have that right to defend my country? The people of Afghanistan and Iraq have no value to the "Power Elite"......Whether 1.5 million Iraqis are dead means nothing to the "Power Elite".......Whether men are: kidnapped, detained, tortured, and murdered means nothing to the "Power Elite"
The murder of almost 3,000 people on 9/11 was never fully investigated and most of the physical evidence was destroyed or sealed as "Top Secret". Those lives were worth 3 million dollars to the "Power Elite" and "They" gladly used taxpayer money to pay the families.......Look at the Trillions of Dollars the "Power Elite" made in the past six years.........
Policy made by "Think Tanks" is policy made by "The Power Elite" with "Power, Greed, and Control" the final goal.
"Was the Bush Administration bribed or intimidated by the Saudi Leaders when the prisoners who were released, returned to terrorism, as the Bush people proclaim?"
Genie,
I guess if they were not enemies before they were incarcerated (For years) without any formal charges they certainly would be after being mysteriously released. I know I wouldn't be a happy camper if such were to happen to me.
(We have no problem releasing murderers,rapists,child molesters, and etc. if the state has insufficient evidence to convict.)
How about building an indefinite detention facility for the real criminals in the country causing us and the planet irreparable harm daily:
Wall Street Bankers
Defense Companies
Multi-National Oil Companies
Big Coal
Corporate Media
Bio-tech Giant Monsanto and others
Health Insurance Companies
Lock 'em all up and deny them Habeas.
The President can surely find a way, perhaps through Executive order, to accomplish this.
This smells like the Resurection of Darth Cheney.
"consistent with the national security interests of the United States and the interests of justice."
-in other words, we will do as we please
"...use of harsh interrogation techniques."
-a.k.a. torture
"...Officials argue that the plan would give detainees more rights and allow them a better chance to one day end their indefinite incarceration than they have now at Guantanamo."
-don't hold your breath
"...Instituting long-term detention through an executive order would leave Obama vulnerable to charges that he is willing to forsake the legislative branch of government, as his predecessor often did."
-WOW! I am shocked!
http://www.infowars.com/the-population-reduction-agenda-for-dummies/
This brought to my attention. Don't really like the guy (alex Jones), but some interest info. Watch your ass's.
The Beige Bush shows his true colors and to whom he has sold himself.
Poet
Have we had enough of these assholes, yet?
What do you proposed we all do? I am all ears seaweed. enough is enough.
Well, it's not really what we do, but, rather what we don't do. Don't buy anyhing more than you really need to survive. Don't let your children become soldiers or police or any other type of contol mechanism for the corporatists. When the consumer driven economy rapidly..... And I do mean rapidly, breaks down, resist all efforts by the corporatist enforcers (police, et. al.) to bring you back into line. Sure, in America alone that could mean 200 million people in prison. What the hell: who's going to do all the real work for the corporatists and their bag-lapping drones. No culture has ever wiped out all their peasants. The ruling class has always knocked off a few to scare the shit out of the rest of the peasants. Don't tell me it doesn't work, just look around you.
It's all just a pipe dream, I fear. Our only hope is that God is a woman and she just squats and pisses on us all.
I chose not to serve on a jury-- let's see if the court rejects me as a juror. I sent back my jury summons questionnaire stating I can't serve on a jury, as I will never vote to convict anyone of a crime until the Bush Administration is held accountable for their crimes. Also, I'm opposed to the "War on Drugs" and the majority of local trials seem to be for petty, drug-related "crimes."
"Our only hope is that God is a woman and she just squats and pisses on us all."
Her name is Mother Nature and she is pissing on us all and about to shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
My favorite bumper sticker is, "Mother Nature is coming and BOY is She pissed!"
My favorite bumper sticker is, "Mother Nature is coming and BOY is She pissed!"
well said, but a little apathetic. When there is an action there is always a reaction. Right, we all know this. The choice is ours on how we react. We can succumb to their brutalities or we can act in most poisonous of ways that would erode their power. Americans need to know they have a choice. Not hope brought to you by Obama, but one that comes from within and from seeing your neighbor respond without apathy.
I agree that the corporate elite have always killed some peasants to keep the others in line, but this is their last stand and they know it. The difference is the technology they will wield against us. Not just computers, but bio technology and any thing else. This is not some freaking sci-fi movie and it is reality and we in this republic best wake up out of our little secure daydreams before we all go the way of the peasants of Nazi Germany, Rome, Stalin. What ever it takes we must wake up and band together.
If we keep waiting for a god or alien or buddha or jesus to pull us out of this mess... were done!
The part about sqwat-piss is really a statement of we don't have a snow ball's chance in hell of ever recovering from the mess we're in. True, there have been instances where the peasantry have found some temporary relief from their economic masters. The Us even did it back in 76....1776 when we threw the Royals out on their arses. Of course being the natural-born slave/humans we are we soon reverted to having another class of masters (corporatisats) take over our lives.
We Amerikkkans like to feel so smug about our "freedoms" and our "rugged individualism". If we had the balls to take to the streets as the Iranians have, our corporatist-controlled government would be only too happy to shoot us by the dozens or even thousands, if need be.
All these little brush wars we engage in around the world are only practice runs for our bag-lapping army for the real show-down...... Putting down the real revolution which is inevitably coming to this country. They will follow their orders. Most of them, gleefully.
I do not espouse any sort of violence. I really do wish we had the courage to stand up for real justice in a totally civil disobedient manner. History, however, says that has never happened.
Seaweed,
You sound if you were speaking directly from my heart.
Humbly
Doggone
Bypass them all with voter initiatives and referendums. See http://ni4d.us/
What a dweeb, and this guy has the gall to preach to Iran about "Human Rights".
Well, I don't like to sound like an alarmist, but
Congress is enacting ever more restrictive legislation forbidding or penalizing freedom of speech and opinion,
There are many concentration camps that have been constructed during the previous eight years, at least one of which has huge gas lines piped in to a sealed building with exhaust stacks.
If you imprison enough people, eventually it becomes difficult to feed them, so you eliminate them for the good of society.
There has been a lot of effort expended to make all of this much more efficient than it was in the 1940's. The Gestapo had to actually hunt for dissenters. Now, we can bring them up on line, activate the GPS chip in their cell phone or car and pick them up immediately.
We are moving toward the position that thoughtcrime is a punishable offense. If the government decides that you may be thinking about doing something wrong by the state's definition, you may be picked up and disappeared. Bush made a start of that right after 9-11. Even the rationalizations given at the time came right out of the "Nacht und Nebel" playbook of the Nazi government.
I'm sorry, but I fear we are getting down to two choices. Either figure out a way to curb this increasingly fascist government, or resign ourselves to living like Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984, being conscious of continual surveillance, doing nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary, lest it bring you to somebody's attention. Guarding your speech, the expression on your face, burning any books or papers you have that might be construed as critical of the government, and never mentioning the people who have disappeared, who have become unpersons, because they erred in their self-control and received the knock on the door in the night.
When I wrote my prediction of what Bush would do, a couple of weeks before his inauguration in 2000, I was deluged with "This is America! It can't happen here!" It did in spades.
Now, here we are in the first year of the Obamanation and the excesses seem to be continuing, along the same path, to an overt fascist state. Perhaps it is time for a reprint of Orwell's 1984 to be issued. The unthinkable has been thunk.
As I remember posting on here before, 1984's dystopia assumes too much of the fascists and too little of man.
1. Greed and fear of the people can permanently unite capitalists to maintain a long-term bind on the people.
If the history of the violent collapse of once stable governments means anything, more likely than not, warlords arranged around the dominant power ideology (in our case, corporations) will end up fighting each other. Already, we can see from the behavior of various interest lobbying groups that there is no consensus on anything other than subordinating workers and getting more profits. When that goal is mostly accomplished under fascism, I don't see much long-term cooperation to maintain such arrangements (especially since many businesses would then have to compete with each other for profits, especially in the security/finance market that rules over everyone else, and those that grow too large collapse from their weight).
2. People are infinitely malleable. Spin and PR can go on indefinitely, in ever more subtle ways to deceive the people.
Even in the most planned states, unplanned events occur, often to the detriment of suspicious leadership occur daily. For a propaganda machine to hide and distort every last barbaric outrage, in all of its forms, is impossible. Besides, the product of a few hundred thousand years of human group evolution probably instilled in people a sense of group outrage that can't be fully suppressed by training. Lack of a leadership would hamper such a movement for years, but the fascists are rolling dice infinitely many times, banking on permanently not getting any given number.
3. Enforcement and enforcers will be perfect.
No...Consider both the number of people needing to be watched, ID'd, and the number of police to co-opt and ready for active raids, there's no way enough loyal people can be produced and maintained, even if children were brainwashed. Since leaders rarely extend surveillance measures designed to enslave the people against each other and so many middlemen need to be involved, slippage or bribery (given that this is capitalism) is inevitable. In fact, this was the system in the USSR by the 1980s, "dissidents" were executed (including many false positives); real criminals and Mafia often were free to do anything. Of course, the state will present the myth of this to ensure order, but considering how clumsy such an apparatus would be, I doubt much would come of it if a real, dedicated revolution attacked it.
4. We're completely disposable.
We produce their stuff. If they let foreigners do this, they need us to coerce such foreigners. But the more they lose our trust, the more cynical we become, the less we share in their wealth, the more likely veterans will revolt or refuse orders. (Why do you think nobles almost never armed their serfs?) If they use mercenaries or machines or any newfangled weapon, not only do they pay more, they also risk losing wars to disloyalty, equipment breakdowns, and unintended environmental consequences (including inability to use the target country's resources due to depopulation/environmental ruin/radiation). Replacing all of labor at home with machines runs into the same maintenance problem; a human must ultimately be at the base of that machine (a world of robots supervising and creating other robots have no need for any parasitic humans, including the ruling class), so the opportunity for sabotage and bribery is always there.
Given how global warming and oil depletion will destroy much of society's capacity, these plans for reducing population won't be as organized as they envision. Most likely, they won't even have enough resources to imprison us all or feed all the vital workers (of the surveillance/war economy), much less use more speculative means like plagues/chemicals, which cost more and can backfire. War and starvation probably will be employed, though capitalist empires may just break apart before such murders can be completed. The future danger, individually, is indeed in these concentration camps. But collectively, nuclear bombs and war could end us all; I think removing nuclear bombs and climate disruption devices should be our highest priority.
Of course, I do not mean to underscore our danger. Fascism must be stopped now. The idea of denying the complicit legislature power to protect the citizens by a president wanting kingly powers reveals only the cowardice, fear, and secrecy of the leaders. The idea of arbitrarily declaring certain people enemies of the state is totalitarian. Elections and reform won't work unless radical action (doesn't need to be violent) threatens to completely uproot their order. Our demands should be at least the reversal of the last 30 years and the justifications that led to them (laissez-faire, corporate personhood) and the rights enshrined in the UN declaration alongside the Bill of Rights, but the idea of the people as the 4th Branch is perfectly valid. A stronger, more direct democracy with fewer bureaucrats (government and corporate) would be nice, especially if many of those organizations currently oppressing us are democratized.
WHAT? Is this really true? is there proof re. the current concentration camps??
google "FEMA camps" and judge for yourself
I couldn't find a reliable source about these "camps." But then again, if they were "debunked" on Glenn Beck's show, maybe there's something to this.
It just sounds like a conspiracy theory, to me.
Deleted duplicate
We can change what the puppets look like every few years, but the manipulators stay the same.
They're still tearing up the Bill of Rights and Constitution to wipe the blood off their bank deposits.
R.I.P. United States of America: 21st, June 1788 - 11th, September 2001.
Obama's actions are probably best for the country. For over two centuries, the working people have been buying into this baloney that we are a peaceful republic built on laws. The actions of the president and the democrats in congress may finally wake people up to the fact that we are now, and always have been, a predator state that ravages other countries whenever possible.
Perhaps we should change the seal of the U.S. and the president. I suggest removing the eagle and replacing it with something more appropriate . . . like a locust.
Or a tick.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Perhaps leeches?
no - leeches can be beneficial.
I skimmed this article. It seems mostly like "insider" BS to signal more delay. Clearly, the whole "enemy combatant" designation was made up with the intent of violating domestic and international laws.
Obama just continues to violate the laws.
-TIA
"The challenge for the new administration is how to solve these legal question of preventive detention in a way that is consistent with the Constitution . . . "
here we go again.
"signing statements"
"executive orders"
"implied powers"
"the decider"
none of these are mentioned in the Constitution.
Habeas Corpus is.
Heh. Say hello the to the new boss, same as the old boss.
I don't know why anyone is surprised by this, the US is a one party state to borrow a line from I think Beyond The Fringe:
JONATHAN: [The Americans] have inherited our two-party system.
DUDLEY: How does that work?
JONATHAN: Well, they have the Republican party, which is the equivalent of
our Conservative party, and they have the Democratic party, which is the
equivalent of our Conservative party.
How do we get back to the Constitutional Republic we used to have? The first step is to impeach all who violate the Constitution. Let us start with president Barack Hussein for his violation of the sixth amendment.
I wonder if those who voted for Obama have opened their eyes to the truth yet? I am glad I didn't vote for him. My gut was right about him.
Well I did vote for him and I am very disappointed with some of
his BS. I thought we were getting away from the "Decider" but
now I have doubts. The only consulation is that McCain was the
bigger danger and Palin the bigger ding-bat. It all boils down
to the fact that our choices for President suck.
What do the folk who drank the Obama kool-aid have to say now? The differences between Obama and Bush have more to do with style than substance, I'm afraid. Where is the movement against the Obama policies re: war, economic theft, etc. The man is so very pro-corporate that he'd rather see Raytheon make a spectacular profit than to see Afghan peasants live. Anyone who supports Obama is colluding in war crimes.
"What do the folk who drank the Obama kool-aid have to say now?"
I wouldn't matter what brand of kool aid one were to drink the results would generally be the same..When a program becomes corrupt it must be replaced regardless of who the operator of that program happens to be (Bush, Obama, Nader, or whoever)....What is lacking on these discussion forums are ideas about the kind of nation we would wish to be as opposed to the nation we are. It is easy to criticize this corrupt system but how do we change it? "Meet the new boss...same as the old boss" and "the drinking of kool-aid," although humorous, really do not address the issues we face in post-modern United States. It is time for the real thinkers to surface. Critics are a dime a dozen.....
Change is discussed, such as eliminating corporate personhood.
Problem is we have developed a catch 22 situation.
Only through peaceful mass disobediance and mass changing of individual conscienous(sp?) and action can change occur.
An easy goal to agree upon would be the upholding of the constitution and national and international law, a reenforcement of checks and balances and a true representation of the people"s will.
Glenn,
"Only through peaceful mass disobedience and mass changing of individual conscientious(sp?) and action can change occur."
I agree with you 100%. I also believe change will be an evolutionary process as opposed to a revolutionary one.
"An easy goal to agree upon would be the upholding of the constitution and national and international law, a reinforcement of checks and balances and a true representation of the people"s will."
Once again Glenn I agree. But... Perhaps we should revisit that holy document of American existence (The constitution) sometime in the future and consider a re-write.) I said this before; the founding "fathers" would be very surprised to find we are still using it largely intact. Was it not Jefferson who suggested that the constitution should be re-considered every twenty years or so? I feel that as it stands now perhaps President Bush was correct when he (allegedly) referred to it as a G-- D--- piece of paper.
"a reinforcement of checks and balances and a true representation of the people"s will."
Glenn that would definitely be a good start...
"Change is discussed, such as eliminating corporate personhood."
Absolutely! Perhaps this should be the first step.
your last sentence has it down.
there's no need to discuss "what kind of nation we wish to become".
what is needed is pointing out the kind "we" have become.
walk the walk.
delete
"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."
So here's what I want to know: If the claim of legitimacy for indefinite incarceration is based on the so-call "laws of war," shouldn't we at least be at war with a specific country?
Congress has never declared war. The previous administration simply proclaimed that we are at war with "terror". Anyone can be branded a "terrorist" and therefore declared an "enemy" combatant. On that basis, some future administration could declare that we are at war with "stupidity" and anyone could be branded "stupid" and therefore declared an "enemy".
Hey! Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Except that the nearly everyone might qualify for incarceration under that criteria, and who would be left to pander to the celebrity worshipping society we've become?
Spot on Dan, I suggest we declare "war on stupidity" brand the entire government stupid and put them in "preventitive detention " before they can cause any more "shock and awe" to the "Constitution and Bill Of Rights" then we can give them all speedy trials, or not, by Military tribunal.Where should we send these" enemy stupid treasonous combatants" no foreign nation would want them ? Oh how about that huge island of floating plastic in the pacific? The prisoners could do hard labor sorting plastic for recycling until they're convicted (or not) for "Treasonous stupidity". Lets work on this! peace
5-Star idea! If only it could be put into action!
Great idea! A "war on stupidity" makes at least as much sense as a "war on terror" and disposing of its "enemy combatants" would have much greater benefits for the nation's overall wellbeing.
"Congress has never declared war."
Well, there WAS that nasty bit of business back in the early '40s, but that was the LAST time. ALL of the conflicts since then were not declared wars. So, I agree with you completely. How can these current indefinite incarceration be based on the "laws of war"? The politicians love to parse words and sentences.
Is Julie paid by the word? The article is to long for the amount of information.
Anyway, our government is criminal and corrupt; and serves only the ruling elite.
So what else is new, huh?
Democrats are disgusting. Far worse than Republicans, at least Republicans don't pretend they're for peace and justice.
- Exactly right.
Obama fully accepts the "War on Terror," & the idea of the unitary executive, just as these things were defined in the Bush years.
The main difference between Obama & Bush is that Bush never promised to close Gitmo, nor to respect the law. We could say that of these two criminals, Bush was "more honest" (or at least less dishonest).
Have you noticed that everyone on the left sounds like a PUMA now?
Dont know what a PUMA is and dont give a shit.Wrong is wrong.Tony
"PUMA" ("People United Means Action") is a political action committee in the United States that opposed the Democratic Party leadership and the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for President in the 2008 presidential election.PUMA began as an effort of supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who believed that Clinton should have been the Democratic nominee. According to PUMA, "We [were] protesting the 2008 Presidential election because we refuse to support a nominee who was selected by the leadership rather than elected by the voters."
Wikipedia
Perry Logan believes that Hillary Clinton would have made a much better exceptionalist, imperialist, neoliberal, bankster-loving, anti-Constitutional Unitary Executive than Barack Obama.
· Yr Obd't Servant
That we even have to discuss the "merits" of indefinite detention in this country is an atrocity. I think I'm going to stomp the shit out of the next person I hear call Obama a "liberal". This is fascism, pure and simple. Charge them, and try them. If there is no evidence to support the charges THEY MUST BE RELEASED. THEY ARE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.
"THEY ARE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY"
what!? POTUS' word not good enough?
It is not.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
To take a cue from FDR: the day when Obama signs this order will go into our history as a day of infamy except that this time it is our infamy.
Holding persons indefinitely without charging them is a hallmark of absolute rulers. As recent as Nazi Germany it was known there as "Schutzhaft" or "Protective Custody". The victim could be held indefinitely to protect the people and the state from his allegedly potential terrorist acts.
It was in New Amsterdam that this absolute power of of rulers, i. c. Stuyvesant, was curtailed for the first time in the colonies/trading outposts. When the city became New York this civil right was not abridged.
The writers of our constitution knew that the right of habeas corpus was extremely poorly established in the colonies. They did not want 13 states each with its own "Tower of the Capital of the State" in which Americans could be held indefinitely.
President Obama is about to violate a long standing command of the bill of rights for which he must be impeached.
I am not kidding: "must be impeached". It will not happen though.
Nobody I've ever voted for, for pResident, has won, in nearly 40 years of voting, and I always vote. I'm proud of that :)
Tweedle Dum Obama and Tweedle Dee McCain. HMMMM!
So who dares tell me that Mccain/Palin would have been far worse than what we got right now? Both would have done the same thing. The scarier Obama gets, the more glad I am I voted Nader thrice. By the way, didn't Obama promise to close GITMO? At this rate, I don't even see how that will be done even he's president until 2017. He ought to just admit that he won't close GITMO at all publicly and get it over with it. He's getting worse than even Dubya at this rate. At least with Dubya, Mccain, Palin, etc ..., you knew what was coming.
P.S.: Maybe we need Jon Stewert or Colbert to run as a 3rd party progressive. They have a lots of money and popularity which is what's needed to make a breakthrough. Just ask Ross Perot and Ralph Nader.
I had to sign up to reply to this post. Why on earth would you idolize a couple of clowns who work for the war machine? Is it because they make you laugh at the atrocities being waged today?
Do yourself a favor... walk into whatever room that TV set is blasting from and turn it off for good.
My god... what have we become. Even Amy Goodman gives most of her time on the bailout to Paul (deer in the headlights we must give wall street trillions) Krugman. Is there anyone not yet bought off? I'm sooooo sad today.
This is not a time for laughter.
Ok, so I don't watch enough of them to verify that. Thanks for catching me on this one.
funny will get you through times of no hope better than hope will get you through times of no funny.
This bastardization of The Freak Brothers' most famous quote is better than the original--congratulations on your fine wit (if indeed this is a product of it and not borrowed from someone else.)
That IS hilarious.
I can't stand Stewart when he sux up to some right-winger like Kissinger.
When Stewart made an equivalency between abortion bombers and Michael Moore, then I saw him for what he really is - not a rabid rightwinger, just a NYT liberal. That's why I hate liberals.
who are the Freak Bros?