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Obama Slides Further Down Bush’s Hill on Indefinite Detention
The Obama Administration is looking more and more like the Bush Administration every day when it comes to the policy of holding prisoners indefinitely, without trial, or even after a trial and an acquittal.
Obama himself is already on record favoring indefinite detention of some prisoners.
"We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country," Obama said in May. He alluded to the problem of trying prisoners who were coerced into testifying against themselves. "Even when this process is complete," he said, "there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."
Now the chief lawyer at the Pentagon has expanded the prospects of indefinite detention to include those who actually have already been prosecuted and have even been found not guilty.
Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson told the Senate on Tuesday that this was a "policy decision officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat." Johnson said that the legality of this position "was never tested."
Well, not exactly. The Supreme Court ruled in the Boumediene case last June that the judiciary has the authority to order the release of an "individual unlawfully detained."
And holding a prisoner after he's been found not guilty is the very definition of "unlawfully detained."
Justice Anthony Kennedy was the author of the court's 5-4 decision, and he minced no words. Our security depends not only on the skill of our intelligence agencies and the might of our Armed Forces, he wrote. It also depends on "fidelity to freedom's first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers." He added: "Few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person."
The general counsel of the Pentagon ought to bone up on the Supreme Court's decision. As should Obama.
Johnson did acknowledge that his view happened to be the same as the Bush Administration's.
And that's a huge problem.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllCan someone please tell me what is the differance between President Obama and President Bush on this issue?
Obama is better-looking.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Will our cornfed electorate get this message? Sigh, not if they're distracted by the Palin and Michael Jackson sensation in the media !
Cornfed? I believe it's actually high-fructose corn syrup fed.
And what's so bad about Michael Palin? He was great with Monty Python.
I am thankful that we have the Supreme Court to keep us free from freedom.
Imagine what a horrible world this would be if we were actually allowed to be happy. No, our principles are based on the PURSUIT of happiness. We must be kept on the treadmill, otherwise we might start thinking for ourselves, and where might that lead?
Thank you big brother justices.
Can anyone tell us, and the world, any difference between Bush/Cheney and big O on any major issue: civil liberties, habeas corpus, indefinite detention, health care, corporate power, giving $$$trillion to the bankster/gangsters of Wall Street, letting the ruling elites continue to push and shove the majority into an ever deeper economic pit, concern for the environment, endless wars and an ever growing warfare state, tightly controlled press conferences, constantly moving on behalf of the rich and powerful, ad infinitum. Add you own particular issues. Someone please tell us ANY central issue where the big O is sharply different than the criminal Bush/Cheney regime. Not for nothing did the highly right-wing editors of the Wall Street Journal title a recent lead editorial "Barack Hussein Bush". They know they have their man in place.
"[T]here may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."
He's probably right about that at least. Frankly, I have a hard time imagining a person so saintly that, having been exposed to the tender mercies of American gulag "justice", he would not feel an overwhelming urge to mete out some justice of his own in return. The real problem, however, is what to do about all those relatives, friends and countrymen in whom similar feelings have been engendered. Just rounding them all up could prove to be a bit of a challenge.
We could make that same argument about the millions in the US prison system. The fact is everyday Americans are killing each other every day, more than 16,000 murders in 2007. And we are worried about people like the 15 year old that was picked up in Afghanistan and held in Guantanamo, like he could possible make a dent into the murder rate of the US. The way to make them not mete out justice is to serve justice to those responsible for his imprisonment, first Bush and gang, and possible Obama if he continues the policies.
Isn't Obama saying, with a straight face, and apparently without sarcasm, that he too agrees with Bush that principles of Habeus Corpus dating back to the Magna Carta, are outdated and quaint?
The idea that the lawyer Obama is joining the fascist Bush in justifying the imprisonment of people merely on the suspicion that they may be a "security threat" is very frightening.
I may soon be a security thrreat - in the same manner that that nonbinding constitutional referendum was apparently a security threat to Guatamala, should I be imprisoned too?
well, as the execrable Nancy Pelosi said back in 2003 (04?) "We stand shoulder to shoulder with the President".
There is no fundamental, underlying difference between the Dem leadership and the Repubs foreign and "security" policy. Only differences in style. The Dems, including Obama, have been at pains to tell us this for years. Joe Lieberman, a Dem created the "Dept of Homeland Security". Even Bush didn't want to do it at first. Pelosi, Rockefeller and others attended the early "security" briefings detailing rendition, torture and indefinite detention and said nothing. The majority of dems including Biden, Feinstein, Shumer, HRC, Kerry, etc, supported the Iraq invasion and occupation.
The Dems primary purpose is to round us up and head us off every election cycle, even as we plunge into despair at ever getting even one of our problems solved. There's always "Hope!" and "Change". The Dems love Obama because he updated their "brand". We voters apparently decided to content ourselves with this.
If a president as powerful and popular as Obama won't attempt to dismantle the Cheney/Bush terror apparatus, nobody will.
We're on our own.
Obama Slides Further Down Bush’s Hill on Indefinite Detention
Misquoted title to this article. In his actions Obama has never been above Bush in anything he has done. It's tough to slide down when there is no place to go.
The Beige Bush showing his true colors.
Poet
We elected a new President, but he answers to the same old Board of Directors.
Not sliding downhill but ratherr digging the pit deeper and deeper, the muck getting thicker & thicker.
I knew we were screwed during the primaries, when the favorite technique of Obama supporters was to call their fellow Democrats racists.