In the wake of the latest asinine debate over whether U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil on suspicion of terrorism (conservative police-statists, please stop and re-read that phrase — “on suspicion of” — as in, not convicted, as in not guilty, as in presumed innocent — as many times as necessary until your alleged small-government principles are activated) should be read their Miranda rights (short answer: yes. long answer: YES!!!), once-beloved BrendanLoy.com icon Joe Lieberman is introducing a bill to strip terror suspects’ citizenship, supposedly addressing the issue of suspected terrorists (there’s that word again — “suspected”) having too many damn rights.
Here’s the thing: from what I’ve read about it (and I am prepared to stand corrected if someone has a better understanding of the bill than I do), Lieberman’s bill is both less horrible, and more pointless, than it seems at first blush. Cue Greg Sargent:
Lieberman’s office has clarified to me how the law would work: It would empower the State Department to conclude — on its own — that Americans are conspiring with terror groups and should be stripped of their citizenship.
Lieberman’s law would amend an earlier statute that details other things that can cost you citizenship: Serving in the army of a foreign state, pledging allegiance to a foreign state, and so on. In those cases the State Department decides whether your disloyalty merits loss of citizen status. Lieberman’s law would add involvement with a foreign terror organization — as opposed to a foreign state — to this list.
Okay, so, allowing the State Department — as opposed to, I dunno, a court maybe? — to make this determination sounds pretty awful. But then again, there’s already a law on the books that allows precisely this, under other circumstances. But then again again, those circumstances (e.g., serving in an army, pledging allegiance to a foreign state) are arguably more cut and dried than the shady legal netherworld of “conspiring” with a designated terrorist group. Seems like there’s an awful lot more potential for “guilt by association” — as determined by government bureaucrats! (STATE DEPARTMENT BUREAUCRATS!!! WAKE UP, CONSERVATIVES!!! SINCE WHEN DO YOU TRUST THESE PEOPLE?!?) — in making that sort of fact-specific determination than in ascertaining whether, say, somebody put on an Iranian army uniform, or publicly pledged everlasting fealty to Mad Mahmoud and the Grand Ayatollah. So, at this point we’re leaning toward Worst. Idea. Ever., yes?
But wait! Here’s where the bill becomes both (a) not as bad as you think, and (b) not as helpful in “solving” the too-many-rights “problem” as Lieberman wants you to think:
You would still have the right to contest this in court. And if you did, the burden of proof would be on State — not on you — to persuade the court that your involvement with a terror organization is sufficient to justify taking away your citizen status.
Bottom line: Lieberman’s law can’t keep you out of court against your will if you want to contest efforts to strip your citizenship. And chances are that if you were already facing other charges — plotting or executing a terrorist act — you would be simultaneously tried for that in civilian court, too, even as State continued to try to revoke your citizen status.
So, for all of its best worst intentions, the proposed law doesn’t spell the end of due process and basic civil rights and American democracy as we know it. But it also doesn’t actually address the “problem” it’s meant to address, namely the fact that the heroic heroes who Keep Us Safe From TerrorismTM have to deal with pesky things like “laws” and “rights” and “the Constitution” when investigating American citizens suspected (dammit, there it is again) of terrorism.
If Lieberman’s bill becomes law, the authorities will still have to deal with those pesky impediments to Keeping America SafeTM, unless and until a court directs them otherwise, which itself can’t happen without at least some degree of due process — and which, in any case, obviously won’t happen until long after Jack Bauer’s window to stop the ticking bomb from exploding has expired.
So basically, this bill, while perhaps intended as a frontal assault on basic notions of fairness and due process, cannot actually achieve its goal. Instead of being monstrous, it is merely pointless. I award you no points, Joe Lieberman, and may God have mercy on your soul.
[CAVEAT: This post was written in haste. I welcome any and all fact-based, reality-grounded rebuttals, corrections and comments. Perhaps I’m being too hard on ol’ Joe. Or perhaps I’m being too easy on him. Both things have happened in the past! Either way, I may be wrong on some factual details. I’m not wrong, though, that the very concept of taking away basic due process rights from any non-criminally-convicted American citizen — which Lieberman’s proposal, as it’s been publicly presented, seemingly tries to achieve (although, at least arguably, it ultimately fails) — is a totally indefensible and completely un-American idea (here’s one of those rare instances where “un-American” is an appropriate descriptor!), and if you think you support such a concept, you need to rationally re-examine your beliefs in the light of day, without any mental references whatsoever to Jack Bauer … and if, after doing that, you still support it, you’re pretty much a bad person.]
The simple fact that we are proposing laws like this means the terrorists are achieving their objectives. And that our Senators watch too much TV.
Reminds me of the Peggy Noonan column, where she talks about nobody even understanding the laws that are being passed. Have we come to the point where our lawmakers don’t understand the laws they are passing? Apparently, yes.
Of course they don’t understand them…they don’t even read them!
Pardon my French, but this is the stupidest f*cking idea I’ve ever heard. Period.
The Constitution talks about treason. It does not talk about _stripping citizenship_. Give him a fair trial for treason then a d*mn fine hanging as a punishment. Welcome to the backhand of being a citizen, mind the trapdoor, do you have any last words?
It scares the sh*t out of me that there are otherwise rational citizens nodding their head to this because they can’t see the second and third order effects. I feel like getting a branding iron made up with Ben Franklin’s famous quote about security and liberty then having it branded on the forehead and/or first born child of every person who thinks this is a good idea. Seem like I’m frothing mad? D*mn right I am.
Second and third order effects, indeed. It’s one thing to strip people’s citizenship based on their declared or manifest affiliation with a foreign state; we know what’s a foreign state and what isn’t. But what happens when the State Department classifies some Tea Party-affiliated radical group as a “terrorist organization,” then starts stripping people’s citizenship for going to rallies? Unlikely, yes… but not unlikely enough! We’re supposed to be a government of laws, not of men — which means we shouldn’t be relying upon the good graces of government officials, assuming they won’t abuse the easily-abused powers that we give them. The laws themselves should make the abuses difficult, not easy. This is one instance where “conservatives” who give this sort of idea the time of day aren’t being paranoid enough.
That there are people in this world who think health-care reform equals tyranny, yet support something like this, truly boggles the mind.
So gahrie, still think the Lieberman today is the same as the one of 10 years ago? That its the democrats who have dramatically changed and not him?
You may very well be right about this being a dumb bill. I do not reflexively support everything Joe Lieberman says or does, and I have little desire to read up on this legislation to form my own opinion based on independent reading and analysis. But I must admit, when I read over-the-top polemics like this post (“OMG this is the worst bill EVAH!”), my natural instinct is to research some reasonable-sounding excuses to support this bill and/or play devil’s advocate. Frankly, for a piece of legislation that A. is probably constitutional, and B. will not end up amounting to a whole hill of beans (the State Dept will be loathe to spend precious resources on funding enforcement except in the most obvious cases where charges will be brought, and courts will otherwise probably end up throwing out most other ill-considered applications of this law), I don’t understand the fuss. Congress passes stupid shit that grants too much leeway to bureaucrats every day. I mean, that’s like 90% of what they do. There’s a good reason states like Texas only have their legislators convene for limited sessions every other year — so much less time to cause trouble.
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Every now and again, some aspect of the culture reminds you how much America has strayed from its enshrined tradition of protecting the rights of minorities from the tyranny of the majority (a tradition that arguably got us to our world-dominant position in the late 20th century).
A tradition far from perfect, of course – start with slavery, then go to the Trail of Tears, and on to WWII internments, and on and on…the US has a long history of madness where it comes to protecting the rights of minorities. Generally, though – and this is key – we have been better than most other countries, which is why the world’s talented unwashed masses historically looked to our shores for a better life, and made our country so much better as a result.
Today, into a culture where H1-type visas are in laughably short supply in the US, we are going to invite the world’s talented people to our shores with the understanding that they can build a new life here, go through the naturalization process…but if they were once alleged to be connected in some way to a group that was connected in some other way with a terrorist organization, the whole edifice they built here can be stripped away, overnight – by law.
Not that Joe the Plumber cares, but the US has done a poor job in the post-9/11 era of protecting the things that made us great (e.g. protecting the rights of minorities). We often respond to traumas like 9/11 by temporarily forgetting our principles, but it seems as though in the past we have gotten back on track in a shorter period of time. Not only does the Lieberman law not raise much stink, its one more overlooked piece of junk on the pile of rubble that is the 21st century American mentality: increasingly relatively unwelcoming for the world’s most capable people.
I vote for WORST. BILL. EVAH!! However, too many people in this country are no longer viewing the war against terrorism as a war. Too many view this latest act as yet another isolated incident. These are enemy attacks on our soil by enemy combatants. I am still against the idea of Mirandizing these people. The problem lies in determining who is an enemy combatant with whom we are currently at war and who is a whack job citizen truly acting alone. Often times that isn’t determined until long after a suspect would be Mirandized. Yet another complication to fighting this 21st century style war. That being said, the Lieberman bill is not the right remedy to the situation.
I am still against the idea of Mirandizing these people. The problem lies in determining who is an enemy combatant with whom we are currently at war and who is a whack job citizen truly acting alone.
You’re neglecting to mention another “problem,” which is the need to determine who is guilty and who is not guilty. Yet again, because this can’t be mentioned enough, AN ARREST ON SUSPICION OF TERRORISM DOES NOT MAKE SOMEONE A TERRORIST. It’s one thing to play fast & loose with this principle on foreign soil, with foreign nationals, but when you’re arresting a U.S. citizen on suspicion of terrorism in the U.S.? What on earth could be the possible justification for presuming guilt and thereby disregarding that individual person’s civil rights? “We’re at war”? A “war” that could realistically last forever, or at least for generations? A “war” that could be “the new normal” for the rest of our lifetimes? A “war,” in other words, whose rules necessarily form the new baseline for what civil rights are, potentially forever? Sorry, not good enough. The potential abuses of such power are unfathomable.
Of course, I suppose if you don’t Mirandize them, at least not right away, that’s fine, so long as you don’t try to use the pre-Miranda evidence — or any fruit of the poisonous tree — in effort to later criminally convict them, in any venue. If the government is willing make that tradeoff… if the intelligence they are gathering is important enough, the “ticking bomb” imminent enough, to take that risk… then I guess that’s fine. (Though I’m not sure why the pre-existing “public safety” exception wouldn’t cover those narrow-purpose, time-limited situations anyway.) But it has to be a real risk with real consequences; otherwise the exception will become the rule. And does anyone really believe that such practices won’t inevitably erode the precedential basis of Miranda rights — not just for terrorists, but ultimately, for everyone? (That’s how legal precedents work. They don’t just apply to the cases in which they’re decided. And judges’ attempts to seal them off from future application usually fail.)
That said, I’m glad to see that nobody on this blog is rushing to the bill’s defense.
Eh, they are probably all too distracted by the UK election results
Except AML… Though that does seem to be more in general opposition to knee jerk opposition. Which seems a touch paradoxical to me.
So here, maybe, is a real-world example of why such legislation is a bad idea: in 1959, the repressive, corrupt right-wing Cuban dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown and replaced with the repressive, corrupt left-wing dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Those with money in Batista’s regime escaped the island; many – perhaps most – landed in Miami, which at the time was a one-horse town.
50 years later Miami is a thriving, globally important metroplex. While many factors contributed to its growth, the money, education and experience of the Batista refugees was one of the important drivers. What if America circa 1959 were like America today, where “suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization” can lead to the stripping of citizenship rights?
The example breaks down a bit here, since Castro was a fervent anti-American from day one. But left-wing Latin American revolutionaries are not automatically anti-American; Ortega in Nicaragua started out reasonably friendly with the Carter Administration (cue the Carter=communist jibes).
Suppose Castro had attempted to chum up to the Americans, and we had accepted his overtures and provided support. Would the state department then have labelled organizations affiliated with Batista’s government, separate from his actual government, terrorist organizations? Its not the craziest idea.
More importantly, would the monied refugees of Batista’s government then not have taken their wealth and education to Miami, going elsewhere instead, and leaving Miami that much worse off?
The other obvious place this breaks down is: if Castro buddies up with the US government, Batista’s rich people probably don’t come here, irrespective of laws like Lieberman’s. However, if Castro’s relation with the US is uncertain, which these things usually are, the Batista refugees may still prefer not to take their chances in a country where the State Department wields such arbitrary power, even after they’re naturalized.
Which sure would have been a damn shame for Miami.
Jazz, I can’t believe you wasted precious moments if your limited lifespan typing up that inane, useless, un-correlated thought experiment. Even in its worst implementation, this law would never be wielded with statistically sufficient frequency to make any measurable economic impact one way or the other. Plus, to the extent your thought experiment relies on some sort of overtures between State and Castro AT THE COLDEST POINT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKIN’ COLD WAR he hypothesis is simply absurd on its face. You think Joe McCarthy or the zealous anti-communists that came after him (think JBS, as discredited as they were) would have stood for that? Seriously, where and how do you come up with this stuff? Are you sure you’re not taking shrooms?!?
Hey AML, thanks for relying on the specifics of the Cuban invasion to argue against my hypothetical, particularly given that I acknowledged that the comparison breaks down more or less at the points you mention, then argued elsewhere, which of course meant nothing to you.
In other news, I heard that The Matrix is airing later on TBS, in another tiresome iteration of their nightly “Cheesing Programming from Yesteryear”. Make sure you watch it to come up with another of your really fresh Matrix-y references to fire back at me.
(BTW – in case you were wondering, your frequent appeals to The Matrix – The Matrix, for god sake man! – is about reason #100 why I think your attempts at Tarring and Feathering are laughable. Since you so frequently find meaning in that dated movie, perhaps you are also familiar with its contemporary “Bottle Rocket” – your attempts are to Tarring and Feathering what the Wilson brothers are to criminality in that film.)
When I read some of your comments, Jazz, I feel like I am in the matrix — more specifically the 2nd and 3rd movies where the plot truly goes off the deep end.
So I don’t know Jazz, how about instead you come up with thought experiments that don’t require the level of suspension of disbelief required for movies like The Day After Tomorrow? The audience’s brainwaves may go dead for a bit, but at least the makers of that movie can point to the fact that they made millions of dollars as a result of their efforts. So I can only ask, seriously, what do you get out of spending your time thinking up and typing out metaphors and corollaries and thought experiments that are so far out in left field they can hardly be taken seriously to advance debate in any direction? With some of your posts, I’m more likely to find a morsel of enlightenment from the PoMo Generator.
Ah the Matrix, where we use humans to generate energy despite the fact that we are terrible at it…
Really, my appeal comes down to this: Take a position and advance it with basic reasoning and rational arguments using metaphors and comparisons that are plausible and make sense. Half the time, I can’t tell if I agree with your position or disagree with your ultimate position, all I can decide for sure is you’re out in la-la land speaking gibberish!
Brendan,
Your Tea Party analogy was exactly what I was thinking, actually. I mean, if the President says the GOP is a terrorist organization tomorrow, that would be a problem.
I say worst idea evah because of the hothouse politics of our current age. At least with Alien and Sedition you needed a little bit to build up to crazy. Let someone declare Party X a terrorist organization and all hell would be breaking loose by the end of the month. (By all hell yes, I mean riots, shooting, etc..)
Bottom line–if you’re a citizen, you’re a citizen. Period. We don’t need any Star Chamber stuff going on in this nation, and this is firmly in that direction.
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I was able to do some minimal research tonight, and it appears the rationale behind this bill is to strip suspected terrorists of their citizenship rights so they can go through the military tribunal process and/or be held indefinitely, versus go through the standard due process and be charged with a crime and undergo a criminal case, and/or potentially expose intelligence-gathering methods.
I tend to support that effort, though I suspect the language of the bill will need to be tightened up a bit.
Still, now that I understand what Lieberman and company are really trying to do, most of Brendan’s arguments fall flat. Brendan makes a big deal (did I say a big deal? I meant BIG F**KING DEAL, LIKE OMG THIS IS THE WORST. BILL. EVAH!”) because this legislation is aimed at suspected terrorists (as opposed to convicted terrorists), but again, that’s the whole point — to take them out of the criminal justice do-loop before they get there.
Now, let’s step back for a minute here. Back on 9/11 the majority of people agreed that what we witnessed was an attack on America, an act of war. We agreed that terrorism is more or less an act of war committed by non-state actors, as opposed to a criminal issue. Thus we mobilized our military in Afghanistan, and later, Iraq, in response (as opposed to sending legions of FBI agents and DOJ lawyers).
If, then, we agree that terrorism constitutes a non-state actor’s act of war, then when an American citizen performs that act, it’s an act of war against his own country and similar to treason or joining an opposing military in times of hostility (existing statutory reasons which the State Dept can invoke to remove your citizenship). Thus, it makes sense to grant State similar powers to remove alleged terrorists before they go through the criminal justice system so they can be tried and dealt with more along the lines of enemy combatants.
I’m sorry but that all makes perfect sense to me, and even if you still disagree and are uncomfortable with the potential for abuse this law may create (never mind that it’s ridiculously implausible that the law would ever be abused similar to a manner conjectured previously in this comment thread), I think we can at least come to terms that this is, most definitely and by far, NOT the “worst idea ever.”
Seriously? I really fail to see what is wrong with the standard Criminal Justice system in this country. Nor do I see a problem with due process. That you do suggests the terrorists are winning. That you are willing to sacrifice the basic tenets of our society and half the casus belli of the Revolution implies, to me, that you are on your way down the rabbit hole of fear and paranoia.
dcl, that you fail to see how the criminal justice system doesn’t work when it comes to terrorism, suggests the terrorists have already won. That you are willing to give enemy combatants the basic rights of US citizens means our military power will gum up as our soldiers are forced to read Miranda rights on the battlefield. You are clearly on your way down the rabbit hole of pacifism and surrender, giving up everything our Founding Fathers fought for in the name of some misguided moralistic interpretation of justice and due process.
Andrew, the simple fact of the matter is you are willing to allow the government to strip someones citizenship based on SUSPICION of terrorism. So whats the standard you are going to apply there? How much suspicion? Can I accuse you anonymously and thats all it takes? Frankly if it ever gets to the point where that is the case, I’ll be the first in line to accuse you and anyone who supported this dumbass idea so you can see what its like to be stripped of your rights without proof. Welcome to “guilty until proven innocent”*. Heck I even have a suggestion on what we can call the places we lock these people up, lets call them “gulags”. Has a nice ring to it.
For all the bullshit flying around about how Obama is going to destroy our country with socialism and take away our freedoms, its mind boggling that these same critics support plans like this which will ACTUALLY make us more like Soviet Russia.
*note: Innocence will not be proven because you will be locked away without a trial under Andrew’s system
Hate to break it to you AML, but the point of terrorism is to a) make us terrified, and b) destroy our way of life. Giving up our system of justice does this. Not giving up our system does not. Your position doesn’t just not hold water it is flat out idiotic.
Due process isn’t pacifism, it was the whole fucking point of the whole god damn Revolution and you if don’t get that you are a fucking moron. You are the one willing to give up everything our Founding Fathers fought for simply the feeling of safety and security. Not real safety and security mind, just the feeling… It’s like airport security, the part you see just makes you feel better, but it really doesn’t do shit.
We aren’t talking about Mirandizing combatants caught on the battlefield as though this is some how WWII, and when you jump in the trench you have to start reading rights. We are talking about a single person being arrested by US police on US soil who is a US citizen who had broken US law. How is this hard to understand. The rule of law actually works. We don’t need to start pissing on the Constitution to make ourselves feel better… Now if there was some sort of systemic enforcement issue that would be one thing. But there is honestly no fucking way the Time Square bomber belongs in a military tribunal. He belongs in a criminal court of law. Sorry dude, them’s the rules, and when you start breaking the rules for no reason it doesn’t stop. We’ll have prosecutions of armed robbery going to military tribunals because prosecutors will feel better about getting a conviction that way. And that really would be dumb.
David @ #26:
Andrew, the simple fact of the matter is you are willing to allow the government to strip someones citizenship based on SUSPICION of terrorism.
Under Lieberman’s current bill, this might technically be true, but I expect there will be some attempt to add some meat to what it means to be suspected of being a terrorist. I would support having to have some kind of precursor thing happen, such as being arrested, having a warrant, or presenting classified evidence to a FISA-like court.
So whats the standard you are going to apply there? How much suspicion? Can I accuse you anonymously and thats all it takes?
I’d have to read the actual text of the bill to see what standards it currently applies, but I highly doubt the bill currently reads that way or would ever pass Congress with language that loose. My comment at #23 was only to say that, now that I know what the authors’ intentions are, I support their intentions. Again, I am not defending the bill so much as I am defending the idea of what the bill is trying to accomplish — what Brendan huffed was possibly the “worst idea ever”.
Frankly if it ever gets to the point where that is the case, I’ll be the first in line to accuse you and anyone who supported this dumbass idea so you can see what its like to be stripped of your rights without proof.
Heh. Feel free, but I’d be happy to take a bet up with you that it’d never even come close to come to that. Frankly, your level of concern is amusing considering that A. this bill is most likely constitutional, and B. the State Dept already has similar powers to strip you and I of citizenship (e.g. treason, joining a foreign military, etc.). Your hyperbolic reaction is evidence of a real lack of faith in the structural integrity of our political system (i.e. that we have checks and balances that work, keeping us a free nation), as well as an ignorance of how executive agencies implement law (e.g., I guarantee you the State Dept, in response to this law, would immediately draft a 10,000-page book of regulations on how the Dept will apply the law, and it will be subject to continuous inputs from Congress and the administration, as well as subject to funding constraints, meaning that the opportunity of abuse that you raise is exceedingly unlikely to occur on a significant enough scale for ordinary citizens to truly be concerned).
Welcome to “guilty until proven innocent”*. Heck I even have a suggestion on what we can call the places we lock these people up, lets call them “gulags”. Has a nice ring to it.
Really? Would you call an Army brig a “gulag”? Do you think our military justice system is based on “guilty until proven innocent”? Not to mention, you can appeal to the courts, and then State must have sufficient proof to justify revoking your citizenship — all of that before you ever get handed over to the military or sent to Guantanamo.
Look, I can appreciate opposition to this bill from the perspective of, if you’re a citizen, then you should have due process and full citizen’s rights in the criminal justice system. I respect that position, sincerely. So I can respect an argument that this bill is “misguided”, or even “dumb”. But tyrannical? Again, for that to be true, you’d have to believe that our military justice system and how we treat noncombatant terrorists right now — today — is tyrannical. And I fully and wholeheartedly reject that claim because it’s ludicrous and ignorant.
For all the bullshit flying around about how Obama is going to destroy our country with socialism and take away our freedoms, its mind boggling that these same critics support plans like this which will ACTUALLY make us more like Soviet Russia.
Again, ignorant hyperbole.
dcl @ #27:
Hate to break it to you AML, but the point of terrorism is to a) make us terrified, and b) destroy our way of life. Giving up our system of justice does this. Not giving up our system does not. Your position doesn’t just not hold water it is flat out idiotic.
This bill makes no change to the criminal justice system, nor does it make any changes to the military justice system. It simply provides the government an additional justification for your citizenship to be revoked (in addition to a few good reasons that already are on the books) so that you can be processed through one system of justice versus the other. You’re arguing a straw man.
Due process isn’t pacifism, it was the whole fucking point of the whole god damn Revolution and you if don’t get that you are a fucking moron. You are the one willing to give up everything our Founding Fathers fought for simply the feeling of safety and security. Not real safety and security mind, just the feeling… It’s like airport security, the part you see just makes you feel better, but it really doesn’t do shit.
I’m really glad I pushed your buttons here. You obviously didn’t get that I was being over the top in my comments at #25, solely to mirror the ridiculousness of how over the top your comments were in #24. But I pretty much didn’t expect you to, because I suspected you were in fact drinking your own bath water, and this paragraph shows it.
I encourage you to go have a couple of beers, or smoke a hookah, or a peace pipe — whatever you need to do to do the trick — then go back and read what you’ve just written here. Especially this statement: “You are the one willing to give up everything our Founding Fathers fought for simply the feeling of safety and security.” Really? You expect anyone to take you seriously when you throw around accusations like that? Come on now. I know you’re smarter than that!
We aren’t talking about Mirandizing combatants caught on the battlefield as though this is some how WWII, and when you jump in the trench you have to start reading rights.
I have no intentions of defending my statement; as I said above, I was being purposely over the top to mimic your equally inflamed rhetoric.
We are talking about a single person being arrested by US police on US soil who is a US citizen who had broken US law. How is this hard to understand. The rule of law actually works.
Point conceded.
But consider this for a moment: Bush set up (and Obama is continuing to use, and defend, despite his campaign rhetoric in 2008 and before) a military tribunal system to try alleged terrorists (generally described as being non-citizens and non-combatants). Their rationale for this military tribunal system is that we are in an active war, and that the criminal justice system is an inappropriate venue to deal with these suspects because of concerns stemming from how the military operates and how we gather intelligence, and the need to protect those things from being altered or inhibited by exposure during the discovery process in a criminal case.
If this is an acceptable process for noncombatant terrorists we pick up in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and yes, I recognize that the ACLU and Euro-weenie types howl that it is not, but let’s also recognize the current administration, a majority of Americans, and the high courts all support this process), then it’s a very valid question to ask, How is it any different if the noncombatant terrorist picked up also happens to be a U.S. citizen? We still are in an active war, so we may still want to hold these terrorists indefinitely until hostilities end; we still do not want intelligence being exposed in the criminal justice process; and we still want to ensure we maintain access to the suspect as a potential high-value source of intelligence concerning other terrorist activities.
Thus, the very logical conclusion is, you either need to do away with the military tribunal process and give every terrorist the right to due process in the criminal justice system (something most people in the military and intelligence community are loathe to do, and apparently the Obama administration is now more sympathetic to that viewpoint), or you need to find a way to strip American terrorists of their citizenship.
We don’t need to start pissing on the Constitution to make ourselves feel better…
Stripping citizenship from Americans who engage in certain acts such as treason appears to already pass constitutional muster. Stripping citizenship for involvement with terrorism is probably constitutional as well. There is no “pissing on the Constitution” going on here. Brendan howls that this bill is “un-American”, but he didn’t even try to make a case that it is unconstitutional. That’s pretty telling if you ask me.
Now if there was some sort of systemic enforcement issue that would be one thing. But there is honestly no fucking way the Time Square bomber belongs in a military tribunal. He belongs in a criminal court of law.
Do you still maintain that belief even as it now comes to the surface that he apparently did have significant and direct involvement with al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan? Honestly, how is this guy any different than Mohammed Atta, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, or any of the bungholes down in Guantanamo, other than he happened to be naturalized a few years back? That’s literally a paper difference. A terrorist cavorting with other terrorists in Waziristan presents the same threat to America and the same challenges to using the criminal justice system whether he’s got papers or not.
Sorry dude, them’s the rules, and when you start breaking the rules for no reason it doesn’t stop. We’ll have prosecutions of armed robbery going to military tribunals because prosecutors will feel better about getting a conviction that way. And that really would be dumb.
Your concerns about armed robbers being stripped of citizenship and sent to Gitmo are wholly unfounded and, dare I say it? Yes. Dumb.
Your concerns about armed robbers being stripped of citizenship and sent to Gitmo are wholly unfounded and, dare I say it? Yes. Dumb.
Perhaps not armed robbery, but it isn’t impossible to imagine this being used against unfavorable elements in society.
Citizens found on US soil should be tried through the courts and afforded the same rights as anyone else. Period. Any shortcut is to invite abuse.