LET FREEDOM RING!

[billcoe]

LINK

 

CAN AN AMERICAN CITIZEN BE LOCKED UP WITHOUT A TRIAL AND TORTURED? Bush thought so. How about non-US citizens? Bush though so on this as well, despite the fact that it is an illegal, unconstitutional and unamerican idea. .... and what do you do with enemy combatants? This asshole is not a citizen, and he has been detained and tortured for the last 7 years without being able to confront his accusers or offer evidence to an impartial court or hearing. Holy shit. How long are they planning on keeping these dickheads locked up without any hope or a trial? Life imprisonment? This shit isn't American. I understand detaining prisoners of war so they do not kill you. But this shit is way on the other side of what is right. 7 years -damn. Here's to hope and change.

 

"Early Test of Obama View on Power Over Detainees

 

By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: January 2, 2009

 

WASHINGTON — Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration — that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime.

 

Ali al-Marri is being held in a Navy brig in South Carolina.

 

By reviewing government documents, court records and media reports, The Times was able to compile an approximate list of detainees currently at Guantánamo.

 

The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy combatants held at Navy facilities on the American mainland or at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

 

During the campaign, Mr. Obama made broad statements criticizing the Bush administration’s assertions of executive power. But now he must address a specific case, that of Ali al-Marri, a Qatari student who was arrested in Peoria, Ill., in December 2001. The Bush administration says Mr. Marri is a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, and it is holding him without charges at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. He is the only person currently held as an enemy combatant on the mainland, but the legal principles established in his case are likely to affect the roughly 250 prisoners at Guantánamo.

 

Many legal experts say that all of the new administration’s options in Mr. Marri’s case are perilous. Intelligence officials say he is exceptionally dangerous, making deportation problematic.

 

Trying him on criminal charges could be difficult, too, in part because some of the evidence against him may have been obtained through torture and would not be admissible.

 

And staying the course in the Marri case would outrage civil libertarians.

 

“If they adopt the Bush administration position, or some version of it,” said Brandt Goldstein, a professor at New York Law School, “it is going to be a moment of profound disappointment for everyone in the legal community and Americans generally who believe that the Bush administration has tried to turn the presidency into a monarchy.”

 

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama, Brooke Anderson, said he “will make decisions about how to handle detainees as president when his full national security and legal teams are in place.”

 

There are other significant cases on the Supreme Court’s docket — including ones concerning indecency on the airwaves, religious displays, voting rights and the possible pre-emption of state injury suits by federal law — but specialists say a midcourse correction is most likely in the enemy combatant case, Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, No. 08-368.

 

Charles Fried, who was solicitor general in the Reagan administration, said such changes should be undertaken “reluctantly and rarely” and only “for sufficient reason in a sufficiently urgent case.”

 

From the new administration’s perspective, Mr. Marri’s case may meet that standard.

 

A year ago, Mr. Obama answered a detailed questionnaire concerning his views on presidential power from The Boston Globe. “I reject the Bush administration’s claim,” Mr. Obama said, “that the president has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”

 

That sounds vigorous and categorical. But applying this view to Mr. Marri’s case is not that simple. Although he was in the United States legally, he was not an American citizen. In addition, a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force arguably gave the president the authority that Mr. Obama has said is not conferred by the Constitution alone.

 

Still, Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who has generally supported the Bush administration’s approach to fighting terrorism, said Mr. Obama’s hands are tied. He cannot, Mr. McCarthy said, continue to maintain that Mr. Marri’s detention is lawful.

 

“I don’t think politically for him that’s a viable option,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Legally, it’s perfectly viable.”

 

There is precedent for reversing course between campaign and courthouse. When Bill Clinton was running for president in 1992, he was vehement in his opposition to the first Bush administration’s policy of intercepting Haitian refugees at sea and returning them without asylum hearings.

 

By the time he took office, though, Mr. Clinton had changed his mind, instructing the Justice Department to defend the policy in the Supreme Court, which upheld it in 1993.

 

Mr. Obama’s supporters are hoping for a different approach, one that will ensure that the precedents set during the Bush administration do not take root.

 

“The agenda for the Obama administration in dealing with the Bush administration’s assault on the rule of law,” said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University and a member of the Marri legal team, “should be to plow the site with both intellectual and political salt.”

 

In 1993, Mr. Clinton said that practical reality trumped legal theory. In the Marri case, too, the practical alternatives to military detention may strike the Obama administration as unpalatable.

 

One possibility is to deport Mr. Marri to Qatar, but Bush administration officials say that would be an enormous mistake.

 

“Al-Marri must be detained,” Jeffrey N. Rapp, a defense intelligence official wrote in a court filing in 2004, “to prevent him from aiding Al Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States, its armed forces, other governmental personnel, or citizens.”

 

By reviewing government documents, court records and media reports, The Times was able to compile an approximate list of detainees currently at Guantánamo.

 

Mr. Marri’s lawyers would be delighted to see their client freed, but they are also eager to vacate a decision of the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., in July upholding the president’s authority to detain Mr. Marri subject to a court hearing on whether he was properly designated an enemy combatant.

 

Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Mr. Marri, emphasized both points.

 

“If, as President-elect Obama has pledged, the rule of law in America is to be restored,” Mr. Hafetz said, “then Mr. al-Marri’s military detention must cease and the lower court’s ruling upholding the president’s power to order the military to seize legal residents and American citizens from their homes and imprison them without charge, must be overturned.”

 

Another alternative for the new administration is to prosecute Mr. Marri as a criminal. But it is not clear that there is admissible evidence against him.

 

When Mr. Marri was arrested, in December 2001, he was charged with garden-variety crimes: credit card fraud and, later, lying to federal agents and financial institutions, and identity theft. But when Mr. Bush moved Mr. Marri from the criminal system to military detention in June 2003, the government agreed to dismiss those charges with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled.

 

The more serious accusations recounted in Mr. Rapp’s statement are attributed partly to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to be the chief architect of the Sept. 11 attacks and who was captured in early 2003. The Central Intelligence Agency has said Mr. Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding, and information obtained from him may therefore not be admissible in court. Mr. McCarthy, the former prosecutor, said he hoped the new administration is sifting through its options with exceptional care.

 

“If they can’t try him in federal court and assuming he poses the severe risk the Bush administration suggests he poses, is there some room to detain him under the immigration system?” Mr. McCarthy asked. “If there is not a Plan B, we have a disaster that transcends al-Marri,” he added, referring to the larger question of what to do with the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

 

A second case concerning detainees is moving even faster than Mr. Marri’s. Last month, the Supreme Court ordered a federal appeals court to take a fresh look at a case brought by four former prisoners at Guantánamo Bay who say they were tortured. Acting fast, the appeals court initially ordered briefing to be completed by the Friday before Inauguration Day.

 

Depending on how you look at it, the appeals court was being exceptionally efficient, uninterested in the new administration’s views or doing it a favor by not forcing it to take an immediate position on whether provisions of the Bill of Rights and a federal law guaranteeing religious freedom apply to detainees held at Guantánamo Bay.

 

Eric L. Lewis, a lawyer for the former prisoners, asked the court to slow things down, a request the Bush Justice Department opposed. But the appeals court granted Mr. Lewis’s request on Friday, and the first filings are now due on Jan. 26 — the Monday after Inauguration Day."

[STP]

Just take one look at that mullet and tell me it isn't criminal.

[denalidave]

Just take one look at that mullet and tell me it isn't criminal.

[sobo]

Just take one look at that mullet and tell me it isn't criminal.

Jeebus, STP, give the guy a break. He's been out of the hairstyle fashion loop for 7 years.

He has no earthly idea what is haute coiffure these days, and it's not his fault.

[pc313]

Just take one look at that mullet and tell me it isn't criminal.

Jeebus, STP, give the guy a break. He's been out of the hairstyle fashion loop for 7 years.

He has no earthly idea what is haute coiffure these days, and it's not his fault.

 

 

Maybe he's a fan of the JOE DIRT MOVIE!!

Edited January 4, 2009 by pc313

[tvashtarkatena]

The guy doesn't win any fashion awards in the shirt department either.

 

Billcoe, if you're concerned about this issue, you might consider joining and becoming active in the ACLU (ACLU.org), or at least joining their legislative action network, if you haven't already. This issue is at the very top of their national agenda, and they've won many victories to regain the right of habeaus corpus, probable cause, and due process of everyone, including these individuals.

 

You might also consider the more than 250 Guantanamo detainees who've also been tortured and imprisoned for up to 7 years now without being charged with any crime.

 

Yes, this is America, but you can do more about than just hoping it will change.

 

I'm not sure what the ACLU's position is on the coming zombie apocalypse, however.

[Dechristo]

My perception of Bill Coe would hold that he's less than eager to be aligned with any organization that is staffed by malodorous ideologues.

[prole]

Yeah, fuckin' civil rights whackjobs, who needs 'em!

[olyclimber]

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/areyoulivinginaconstitutionfreezone.html

[ivan]

I'm not sure what the ACLU's position is on the coming zombie apocalypse, however.

liberals are always soft on the zombie-issue - never fails that it's the dipshit ACLU guy in a zombie flick who can't bring himself to off a zombie, jsut b/c it used to be his ma/wife/kid/whatever - conservatives have wet-dreams for the kill-em-all zombie fuck-fest and usually end up killing humans in their zeal too

[tvashtarkatena]

My perception of Bill Coe would hold that he's less than eager to be aligned with any organization that is staffed by malodorous ideologues.

 

Billcoe seems like a big boy who can make up his own mind. Regarding your description, I'll pass it on to the Seattle staff: they get a kick out of shit like that. Yours probably won't qualify for lack of originality and cleverness, but the really good one's get posted on a special bulletin board.

Edited January 5, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[tvashtarkatena]

I'm not sure what the ACLU's position is on the coming zombie apocalypse, however.

liberals are always soft on the zombie-issue - never fails that it's the dipshit ACLU guy in a zombie flick who can't bring himself to off a zombie, jsut b/c it used to be his ma/wife/kid/whatever - conservatives have wet-dreams for the kill-em-all zombie fuck-fest and usually end up killing humans in their zeal too

 

Now, on to an issue raised by a less repetitious poster:

 

It's unclear whether zombies would be defined as 'persons' under the Constitution. One test the Supreme Court used to determine 'personhood' in Roe v Wade involved the likelihood of surviving on one's own; hence the third trimester rule. Zombies seem to be able to survive on their own if there are enough healthy brains available, but they're technically dead. Sticky.

 

Even if zombies were granted personhood, the state might still have the right to the occasional headshot in the same way police have the right to shoot in self defense. There might be some probable cause complications regarding shooting zombies en masse, however. How can the state be sure that every zombie in the mob intends to eat living brains? Some could just be along for the ride.

 

Private citizens wielding shaolin swords and sharpened CDs would not be a constitutional issue; the regulation of that interaction would fall to the States. The biggest issue for the living would probably be civil suits from relatives of the undead granny they just decapitated.

 

I'm not even going to speculate about zombie rights if the undead can somehow be cured through the heroism of one man who eventually sacrifices his own life so that humanity may live. The Founding Fathers just couldn't have invisioned the dead being resurrected as anything more than a one shot deal.

Edited January 6, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[STP]

CAN AN AMERICAN CITIZEN BE LOCKED UP WITHOUT A TRIAL AND TORTURED?

 

...Well, if you accept this central insight of legal realism, as I do, then you will readily understand that effective legal training has very little to do with learning the mass and detail of formal legal rules. Instead, it has everything to do with acquiring situation sense.

 

You’ll also see that being an effective advocate requires an ability to arouse the situation sense of other lawyers, including judges. Those who believe that making convincing arguments consists in knowing formal rules are professionally autistic. They can’t make arguments that engage the emotional motivations of those they are trying to persuade. Only those who understand the role of situation sense, who are acquainted with the norms that construct it, are poised to explain, to predict, and through strategic framing and advocacy, to influence legal decisionmakers.

 

So to make you good lawyers we at Yale impart not “rule knowledge” but situation sense. This is part of my apology for our distinctive pedagogy.

 

But it is only part. There’s another, which is more complicated and which is concerned with making you good rather than bad lawyers in a somewhat different sense.

Two Lawyers--Yale Law School Commencement Remarks May 22, 2006 (Amended 5/25/06)

[Gary_Yngve]

I do not see why he is such a threat. Does he hold sensitive information? Is he exceptionally charismatic? If he is a mere pawn, there are thousands more like him

[STP]

DON'T QUESTION AUTHORITY!

[tvashtarkatena]

The funniest thing about this case is that the only substantial evidence the government has against Al-Marri is for identity theft and credit card fraud. They can't, um, exactly charge him with just that, given his now highly publicized enemy combatant status.

 

I.e., the Feds have fucked themselves here by classifying him as an ememy combatant without so much as a shred of credible evidence that he's actually involved in terrorist activities. They need a kangaroo court (military tribunal, which allows hearsay and evidence gained through torture), because they wouldn't get to square one in an actual court of law as far as a terrorism conviction is concerned. What will actually happen is what has happened in similar, bullshit cases: the Feds will push for a plea bargain, using continued Enemy Combatant status (essentially, a never ending prison term) as a threat if the defendent doesn't play ball.

 

As for the hair, well, that should justify at least some torture.

 

Edited January 6, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[billcoe]

It's likely the authorities fucked themselves 6 ways to Sunday on this. Most likely They cannot put him up for trial with introducing evidence of how they undoubtedly did things that many civilized people call torture. They probably can't even introduce evidence of why they picked him up in the first place as that would give the ACLU standing to sue the gov't asswipes on the 100% phone tap program that they most likely utilized to grab Mulletboy there to begin with. They should just have him swear on the Koran and his mothers grave he'll play nice and kick his ass back to his home.

 

Sleeper cell my ass. What a bunch of crap. You cannot have a sleeper cell be successful unless its a secret, note to the pentagon, it's not a secret anymore...let him go and toss his sorry butt to the curb somewhere in the middle east.

 

Total bullshit with a some shred of credibility 7 years ago....maybe. This isn't about Mulletboy though: this is bedrock shit about rights and processes that are impeded in our fundamental laws which the President swears to uphold but isn't.

 

Fuckers.

[billcoe]

My perception of Bill Coe would hold that he's less than eager to be aligned with any organization that is staffed by malodorous ideologues.

 

...and yet here I am with you all.... (I support the ACLU as I generally love the ENTIRE checks and balances thing. Which the "Free" press use to be part of as well - I say "use to be": you can Google and read up on operation Mockingbird or check the black hole that is the CIAS funding today for that sorid story)

 

 

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

The 'sleeper cell' has been proven itself to be mythical in nature. I'm not sure who first came up with the term, but the press and Hollywood loved it, so it's now a permanent addition to our national lexicon of complete bullshit.

 

Deportion remains an option. The government did just that with the former U.S. citizen and enemy combatant Yaser Hamdi, who agreed to give up his citizenship and move to Saudi Arabia (his birthplace) in exchange for freedom. `

 

Another option would be to move Al Marri to a civilian court and try him for identity theft and whateve else the government can swing, as was done (eventually) with Jose Padilla.

 

What amazes me is how many Americans hold one of the world's best criminal justice systems in so much contempt that they would support duct tape and bailing wire kangaroo courts like the military commission as an alternative. Lots of rhetoric about 'freedom', but we don't even respect what we should be most proud of.

 

 

[billcoe]

Good post T. However, when I was in the military, they had what they called "Military Justice". If these guys get the same (as enemy combatants) it's not Duct tape and bailing wire....exactly....of course it's not exactly an OJ trial either. It is due process, which is more than they are getting now. Suspending habeous corpus shouldn't be an option damnit, this is the United States of America fer Christs sakes, we are the home of the free and the land of the brave. Well, we might have been at some point back when. These jackasses should get due process and the right to confront their accusers or get kicked loose and Obama is the dude to do it. Unlawful imprisonment (slavery) was a long time in our past, lets not revisit that. Even 2001 was a long time ago, this jackass may not even have that mullet cause he's bald from aging now.

 

Maybe they could still get him on the Mullet charge like you guys say, but kicking him loose looks like what they should do to make it right imo. It's total bullshit. 2 of my old army buddies had to guard a shitload of asswipes that Castro rousted out of jail and sent here. They were mean nasty thieving, lying, cheating Sons of Bitches. Castro was smart to clear out the worst prisoners and send them here. We took them too. But they eventually even got let loose and got freedom and I bet some of them turned out to STILL be murdering thieving bastards afterwards.

 

Some of these dudes like Mulletboy may only be guilty of thought crime.

[tvashtarkatena]

A military commission (kangaroo court), although administered by the military, is very different from a court martial (UCMJ). The ACLU is asking Obama to either release the Guantanamo detainees or try them, either in civilian court or by court martial...just not through a military commission.

[Dechristo]

My perception of Bill Coe would hold that he's less than eager to be aligned with any organization that is staffed by malodorous ideologues.

 

Billcoe seems like a big boy who can make up his own mind. Regarding your description, I'll pass it on to the Seattle staff: they get a kick out of shit like that. Yours probably won't qualify for lack of originality and cleverness, but the really good one's get posted on a special bulletin board.

 

Of course, again, you're an ill-informed, blathering, nincompoop poseur: your hallmark.

 

There is nothing on the Seattle ACLU office's bulletin board that includes the term "malodorous".

[tvashtarkatena]

My perception of Bill Coe would hold that he's less than eager to be aligned with any organization that is staffed by malodorous ideologues.

 

Billcoe seems like a big boy who can make up his own mind. Regarding your description, I'll pass it on to the Seattle staff: they get a kick out of shit like that. Yours probably won't qualify for lack of originality and cleverness, but the really good one's get posted on a special bulletin board.

 

Of course, again, you're an ill-informed, blathering, nincompoop poseur: your hallmark.

 

There is nothing on the Seattle ACLU office's bulletin board that includes the term "malodorous".

 

nor will there likely be. As I said, your unoriginal comment probably won't make the cut. Sorry man, you're just not that good with words.

[billcoe]

Mullet dude finally gets his day in court!

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/23/ali-al-marri-accused-al-q_n_178246.html

 

"PEORIA, Ill. — A man locked up for seven years after being accused of plotting terrorist attacks in the U.S. as an al-Qaida sleeper agent pleaded not guilty to federal charges Monday and was told his fate may be decided by the end of the year.

 

U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm set a May 26 for the start Ali al-Marri's trial on charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism, but acknowledged it would be moved and delayed."

[tvashtarkatena]

By all credible accounts he seems innocent of terrorism. He'll probably walk.

 

Ironically, the gubmint had a strong case against heim for identity theft, bank fraud, and other charges all ready to go...until he was nabbed by Bush. A fed judge ruled he can no longer be tried for those charges.

 

Also, he was tortured for years to the point of psychosis, casting more doubt on the gubmint's case.

 

Your tax dollars at work.