Starting tomorrow, almost 11 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the U.S. military commissions at Guantanamo Bay will hear the first set of arguments in preparation for the trial of the five alleged plotters.
Lawyers will argue over whether the U.S. constitution applies at Guantanamo Bay, as it would in a regular U.S. court; whether everything that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators say is "presumptively classified" -- especially any statements about their capture and treatment by the U.S. government in CIA custody; and whether the government can prevent defense lawyers from sharing even unclassified information with the media.
In the upcoming hearings, scheduled over the next eight days, the government is expected to argue that the judge shouldn't decide whether or not the U.S. Constitution applies at Gitmo; that the government can keep secret every statement from the five defendants about their experiences being subjected to torture and so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA; and that the government should be allowed to keep the public from seeing information that's not classified but, the government says, would nonetheless be "detrimental to the public interest" if released.
In addition to the lawyers representing the five men on trial, the ACLU and 14 news organizations will argue to end the presumptive classification of the men's statements, and other efforts to seal government records and close portions of the commission hearings, as a denial of the public's First Amendment rights.
At stake is whether the United States government can whisk terrorism suspects to offshore prisons to avoid giving them basic rights; whether Americans will ever be allowed to know what their government did to suspects arrested after 9/11 and interrogated for years in secret CIA prisons overseas; and whether these five men now, 11 years later, will finally be given a fair trial.
It's no exaggeration to say that this will be a defining moment for the United States.
I'll be blogging about the case here.
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There have been only three sky rise towers to collapse, at near free fall speeds, caused by fires in history: WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7 (all on September 11, 2001)
/I see what you did there ;-0
The Constitution does not even apply [ is inoperative ] here in the USA. A former senior presidential aid, with an office in the white house, said as much on TV.
Besides, if our laws don't apply to foreigners, then what authority are we relying on to hold them?
This highly selective use of the constitution and our legal system just demonstrates they have no inherent value as ideals anymore (if they ever did) and are just tools the powerful can use.
Changes to the Constitution and constitutional law have been made insure our freedom and yet we find the extremists in our country demanding that we give those up for their ideological deluded version of what they think the Constitution was.
Whether we actually choose to do so remains to be seen.
Intervene. Order a halt to these military tribunals (it's clearly within your discretion as commander-in-chief) and say that "Gitmo" will be closed down within 60 days.
Your political advisors will undoubtedly say you dassn't touch this stuff before the November elections.
But they're exactly wrong.
Just as wrong as Summers and Geithner were about the stimulus.
Just as wrong as Holder's been about "Fast and Furious" and the medical-marijuana dispensaries.
Just as wrong as Panetta's been about not reining-in the "security" agencies.
I suggest to you, sir, that principled positions are not the enemies of political success; to the contrary, they're the very good friends.