Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
At Guantanamo Bay, and other undisclosed places around the world, our government is locking people up. These people effectively have no rights. Our government asserts the ability to do as it pleases to these people, without the protections that might be afforded by our criminal justice system, the Constitution, or treaties such as the Geneva Conventions. The audacity of the legal theories applied to justify all of this is breathtaking. Most of the people who are locked up are not American citizens, but the case of Jose Padilla demonstrates that this government believes it can ignore these various protections even when it locks up an American citizen within this country, simply in the name of national security.
|
The people at Gitmo are not citizens and should not necessarily have rights under our criminal justice system or the Constitution. They also don't fall into the protected class under the Geneva Convention. That is not to say that there should not be a process for these people, but exactly what that process should be is unclear.
The government, rightfully so, does not want to grant these people protections under our Constitution/justice system, because given the circumstances underwhich they were taken prisoner, the integrity of the evidence gathering process was not among the first concerns of the troops in battle. It's also probably not a good idea (for the prisoners) to have a jury trial, given circumstances. So they are discussing military tribunals, which I understand are not a new concept.
The government should get moving on establishing the process and trying these people under it.
