FC: More on Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected terrorists

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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[Eric was replying to my query about suspending habeas corpus. --DBM]

Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 07:25:58 -0400
From: "Eric M. Freedman" <LAWEMF () Mail1 Hofstra edu>
Subject: Re: FC: Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected   terrorists
To: declan () well com

-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.

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Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 01:20:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Collins <tommyc () lipsio com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
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.

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From: "Thomas Junker" <tjunker () wt net>
To: declan () well com
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
tjunker () tjunker com

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