"People who are believed to be likely to commit a crime at some point in the future can be locked up forever without charge, trial, jury or appeal"

http://open.salon.com/blog/behind_blue_eyes/2009/05/22/obama_proposes_indefinite_preventive_detention_without_trial

And this is better than Bush policy how...?

Jordan .

completely agree, jordan. it might be more complicated. i really hope everything comes out and is in history books before i drop dead though, because there's a lot of elements of this struggle we're just not seeing

i think one of the things that will cause the inevitable return of the GOP (because contrary to the shrieking media, the GOP is not dead, the pendulum is just swinging etc) is that a lot of the kids who voted for obama not as the lesser of two evils but through a haze of all that Hope and Change bullcrap will be completely disillusioned with the democrats when it turns out (as we're seeing now) that obama doesn't fart pixie dust

Jordan .

Yeah, this sucks.  This makes no sense to me at all, given the political capital he is spending on the torture issue, which in some ways is a reversed situation from this one. With torture Bush brought in lawyers to legalize/justify it while Obama is taking that off the table, while here Obama is justifying it while Bush just kind of did it without legal justification (afaik).

 Has Obama actually signed anything on this, or was it just a speech?  If Congress has enough balls to go after one of Obama's main issues, let's hope they can draft some legislation that would touch this. Who knows, maybe they can attach some fire-arms ammendment to it.

 So appart from Obama's apparent hypocricy (and the evident glee in seeing Obama supporters squirm), what do you right-of-the-aisle folks actually feel about this policy?  Does it make us safer?  How would you feel about this if Bush had said these words?

yeah, whether it's moving right or not voting, i think that the left is going to lose them.

fantasy time: the GOP partially collapses, re-forms in megan mccain's vision of what the GOP should be, and they trounce the democrats into dust. probably wont happen though

Bio - I agree with where Obama looks to be heading. It's easy to say "We're gonna close Gitmo", "We're gonna do away with harsh interrogation techniques", "we're gonna stop military tribunals" durign a campaign, but once you start seeing the classified threat briefings, once you start seeing some realities that you didn't see before you realize that it's not so easy. It ain't black and white. It's either that or he's a big LIAR and only said all those thigns knowing he wouldn't actually do anything (which I don't believe is the case).

Nefud - no doubt that Dems will lose them. They will probably head back to the Green Party or not vote at all. 

Jordan .

Another article on this

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/politics/23detain.html?th&emc=th

"Mr. Obama has so far provided few details of his proposed system beyond saying it would be subject to oversight by Congress and the courts. Whether it would be constitutional, several of the legal experts said in interviews, would most likely depend on the fairness of any such review procedures."

sounds only a thin film of poo poo better than the previous admin...

 more from the article:

 "

In a letter to the president on Friday, Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said he was not sure Mr. Obama’s idea would prove constitutional, and added that “such detention is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world.”

Some critics of the Bush administration, who have become critics of Mr. Obama as well, have long said they are skeptical that there are detainees who are a demonstrable risk to the country but against whom the government can make no criminal case.

But some proponents of an indefinite detention system argue that Guantánamo’s remaining 240 detainees include cold-blooded jihadists and perhaps some so warped by their experience in custody that no president would be willing to free them. And among them, the proponents say, are some who cannot be tried, in part for lack of evidence or because of tainted evidence.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Mr. Obama’s proposal was contrary to the path his administration apparently hoped to take when he took office. But that was before he and his advisers had access to detailed information on the detainees, said Mr. Wittes, who in a book last year argued for an indefinite detention system.

“This is the guy who has sworn an oath to protect the country,” he said, “and if you look at the question of how many people can you try and how many people are you terrified to release, you have to have some kind of detention authority.”

Civil liberties lawyers say American criminal laws are written broadly enough to make it relatively easy to convict terrorism suspects. They say Mr. Obama has not made the case persuasively that there is a worrisome category of detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be convicted. The reason to have a criminal justice system at all, they say, is to trust it to decide who is guilty and who is not.

“If they cannot be convicted, then you release them,” said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s what it means to have a justice system.”"

Hard to know how this will play out in 2 years or 4 years.  I haven't seen much evidence that the GOP has a coherent message yet (for example, Micheal Steele's recent attack on gay marriage because it will hurt small business, which really sounds like an attack on ALL benefits to ALL families).  To the extent that congress makes some checks on this it may help both Dems (who have gotten quite a bit of economic stuff passed already, and can be seen as not just following Obama blindly) and GOP (who have obviously disagreed with virtually everything).  In terms who left-leaning voters will vote for in the next prez election, it may depend on what the GOP candidate looks like.  Obama begins to look interchangeable with the GOP candidate then you may see more defections to Green or non-voting.  If the GOP candidate is scary enough to vote against, I doubt you'll see as much of an effect.

There's something contradictory in that sentence. Can you find it?

For a President who's all hot for the Constitution, this is ass-backwards reasoning for his administration.

I realize some laws are flexible in wartime, and we put that in the hands of the government. Would this ever apply to so-called "domestic terrorists?" If I was arrested, and the gov. was *sure* I was stockpiling weapons to storm the White House with, but they had no evidence, would they be justified in imprisoning me forever without trial because it might be a matter of national security?

Just off the top of my head on the question, you 12, are a citizen within the U S, not an enemy captured on a foreign battlefield. An enemy representing no country and for whom the rules of war do not apply. 

I also think any max security U S inmate would gladly choose Gitmo. 

Lawyers.  They cause most of the linguistic pretzel-twisted problems we have in the country today!  Lawyers.  Feh.

 Generally speaking of course.

 This is good stuff though...

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Curious as to the source of that 'edict' above. 1860's Civil War ??

The ones who've had a fair trial... (and I'm not talking Mass. 1692 fair)

On 2nd thought, I disagree. The US prison systems are Club Med compared to Guantanamo:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/03/guantanamo.usa

I would never take anything written in the Guardian as the gospel but more especially when it comes to their views on the US.  It's not much different from the Nation ragazine.

 Yes, Raymond, it is a reference to the US Civil War and it was written by none other than Abraham Lincoln and signed by his Sec'y of State Seward.  I often wonder how much mayhem today's ACLU types would have wreaked had they been around to stir up cyber pots back in the mid-19th century. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

...Abe Lincoln closes out the End of Habeas Corpus (as if...) thread.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Oh yeah, beautiful climate, excellent 'cuisine', watch your weight gain Mr. Al Quida, idyllic recreation.

or 23 hour lock down-no communication with anyone. The er "torture" of being incommunicado. did i mention 23 hour lock down?

Sign me up for Gitmo. I'm serious.  Like a Malibu rehab center. with fencing and armed guards of course I'm sure there is a Dr. Drew Pinsky type available for the Gitmo guests- chat sessions. : )