update on my last post

[kierthos]

Bush to transfer, try terror suspects

This actually appears to be the lead-in article. Bush is having 14 suspected terrorist leaders transferred from secret CIA prisons to Gitmo. Then he wants to try them in the manner I mentioned earlier. (You know, getting a law passed to do what SCOTUS already said he couldn't do aka military tribunals, allowing hearsay evidence, and removing the defendant's right to remain silent).

It gets better. (well, worse, really)

His new proposal, to be sent to Congress, would withhold evidence from a defendant if necessary to protect classified information.

"Yeah, we have this evidence to present to the court, but we're not going to show it to the defendant, so there's no way he can mount a defense against it, but he's going to have to trust us, it shows he's guilty. Of everything. Including some stuff we just made up."

Now, don't confuse this with any sort of sympathy for terrorists. It's not. But we should not be undercutting the legal system in order to convict people on terrorism charges. I mean, how fucking easy does Bush want to make it to get a conviction? Is all their evidence so weak that he needs to do this to look even tougher on terrorism then he already thinks he is?

Mr. President, did you ever take a civics class? If so, what was your grade in it?

Comments

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Did you miss the part up there where I said I had no sympathy for the terrorists? I don't. And I do want to see them prosecuted. But I don't want to see people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time prosecuted for those same charges, and I don't want to see this become a mockery of a courtroom.

If Bush's plan goes through, it would allow hearsay evidence, which pretty much opens the door to anyone saying anything they want, with no substantiation to it at all. If they don't allow the defense/defendant to see certain evidence, then it means that they can have the flimsiest shit in the world, and the defense can't mount a credible defense against it, because they don't know what it is, or where it came from.

Yeah, you're right. The Japanese Americans were locked up, denied rights, and treated like crap. We're supposed to have learned something from that.

I'm not saying don't hold them in Gitmo. We've got to hold them somewhere, and I'm pretty sure if we were holding them anywhere else, just as many people would be bitching about that location insted of Gitmo.

I'm not saying release them en masse. I'm also not saying that we shouldn't prosecute them. But there is a difference between prosecution and persecution. Right now, Bush gives all the impression that he doesn't care how many laws or rights he has to violate to get a conviction on one or more of the Gitmo detainees. And that's wrong. And it sets a dangerous precedent.