********* [Eric was replying to my query about suspending habeas corpus. --DBM] Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 07:25:58 -0400 From: "Eric M. Freedman" <LAWEMFat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected terrorists To: declanat_private -Depends on the details of the proposal, but it could mean that - which might very well lead to a fight over the not-entirely-resolved issue of whether the suspension power is in the President or the Congress. -E. ********* Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 01:20:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Tom Collins <tommycat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected terrorists On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > (This would mean suspending habeas corpus, right?) A helluva way to become Lincolnesque, but it's already been done for noncitizens, whether they are here legally or not. ********* From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunkerat_private> To: declanat_private Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 02:40:53 -0500 Subject: Re: FC: Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected terrorists Declan, With respect to the present vast confusion between the rules of law that apply to citizens and, mostly, to residents and others present within our borders and the rules of war: Criminal law and procedure are one thing; War is something entirely different. In war, there are no defendants; there are enemies. In war the idea is to kill your enemies and destroy their property. This distinction can be maintained only if people being dealt with under the rules of war are not identifiable as U.S. citizens and are not transported to our country. In our territory government is limited by the Constitution. Exceptions made for reasons stated nowhere in the Constitution are done only at great peril. Rules on treatment of prisoners do not stem from our Constitution, they come from international accords. They can be changed or ignored. Since their formal inception in the last century they mostly *have* been ignored by all except the U.S. and her allies. At first blush I don't have a problem with military tribunals conducted in foreign territories against foreign hostiles. At first, second or third blush I do think that those who talk about due process or other consitutional and procedural aspects of criminal and civil justice in the context of prosecuting a war extraterritorially are more than a bit confused, and I'm being overly generous at that. The authority for conducting summary proceedings and executing particularly nasty hostiles in the field can probably be created out of whole cloth, but cloth of a type exclusive to the sovereignty of nations, and will no doubt serve quite well. In any case I am far, far less concerned about the propriety of how the culprits and their ilk are dealt with on their or their hosts' territories than I am about any such tactics being employed within our borders. Most if not all the proposals for implementation within the U.S. that have already begun to surface from the usual suspects merely punish law-abiding Americans for what hostile foreigners have done and may be thought to be planning to do, without providing any meangingful protections against terrorists. Saturday, Fox aired a rebroadcast of an undercover report on airport security that made it crystal clear that all the hoopla of airport security since its inception has been form without substance, mere pap to sooth the masses. A repetition of the recent tragedy can be prevented *only* by securing the cockpits and preventing or prohibiting opening the cockpit under *all* circumstances during flight and before and after flight when any passengers at all are on board. No matter what happens in the cabin, only those on board are at risk if the cockpit remains secure. The probability that a disabled or out of control airliner would, purely by chance, wreak the kind of devastation we saw on Sep 11, is extremely remote no matter what transpires in the cabin, and would be even more remote if flight paths were never lined up with population centers while within 500 or 1,000 miles. The second thing that could be done supposedly is being done but far too late and probably with far too many constraints: have at least one armed agent aboard all flights. Such agents should be thoroughly indoctrinated in the new reality that in the extreme, the entire plane and all crew and passengers are expendable to prevent ten times or greater the same loss should the plane become a guided missile. We will probably also have to make it very clear to the nutcase groups and their sponsors that any other mass destruction by whatever means directed against us will result in those groups and their sponsors being turned into radioactive ash. Hey, if it's going to be us or them, I'm for toasting *them*, in a heartbeat. For that matter, I think everyone everywhere who wants to die for Allah in twisted hatred of the U.S. should be helped speedily along to his destination. Here at home, the people who immediately jump up to propose that we gut our own freedoms in response to this attack are, I believe, very sick in their own right. I will put up with enormous inconvenience in matters that are discretionary, such as air travel, but I will brook no weasels trying to use this moment to undermine the very thing that is the sole reason for existence of this nation: freedom. Ellison, you're a self-serving asshole. Judd, you're a thinly disguised fascist. If either of you had any shame at all you'd step down and live in a cave for the rest of your life. Thank you, Declan, for your continuing excellent reporting. Regards, Thomas Junker tjunkerat_private ********* ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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