July 1, 2008
A flimsy case
Want to know just how flimsy some of the evidence the government has used to justify holding foreign citizens at Guantanamo as "enemy combatants" is?
Read this decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
A couple of the key passages follow after the jump.
First, the government suggests that several of the assertions
in the intelligence documents are reliable because they are made
in at least three different documents. We are not persuaded.
Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact that the government has
“said it thrice” does not make an allegation true. See LEWIS
CARROLL, THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK 3 (1876) (“I have said
it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”). In fact, we have
no basis for concluding that there are independent sources for
the documents’ thrice-made assertions. To the contrary, as
noted in Part III, many of those assertions are made in identical
language, suggesting that later documents may merely be citing
earlier ones, and hence that all may ultimately derive from a
single source.
Second, the government insists that the statements made in
the documents are reliable because the State and Defense
Departments would not have put them in intelligence documents
were that not the case. This comes perilously close to
suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as
true, thus rendering superfluous both the role of the Tribunal and
the role that Congress assigned to this court. We do not in fact
know that the departments regard the statements in those
documents as reliable; the repeated insertion of qualifiers
indicating that events are “reported” or “said” or “suspected” to
have occurred suggests at least some skepticism.
Comments
[July 1, 2008 10:15 PM]
JoshDan,
Maybe you can help get that "Terrorist Bill of Rights" enacted yet. I don't know anyone who has worked as tirelessly as you on behalf of the thugs are soldiers found the need to arrest.
You do understand that if by some way, they ever got power in this country, your job would be the first casualty. Bloodthirsty tyrants aren't known for their gratitude.
[July 2, 2008 7:43 AM]
Dan RadmacherIf you can't see things like the above and, even worse, this and not weep for what your country has allowed fear to do to its guiding principles, then you have no business calling yourself a patriot.
[July 2, 2008 8:25 AM]
HenrySorry Dan. I can't get the tears to flow for a bunch of fundamentalist terrorists.
[July 2, 2008 11:16 AM]
MichelleI wonder if William Blackstone had terrorists in mind when he said “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer". In the case of a terrorist, letting one guilty person escape could mean death and suffering for thousands of innocents. Who wants another 9/11 on their conscience? Right?
It’s the fear of the unknown that grips us and causes us to willing sacrifice the personal liberties of others. We rationalize our actions by convincing ourselves that it is for the public good, but is it?
The detainment of enemy combatants at GITMO is not the first time that we have used little or no evidence to detain those whom we consider a threat to national security. We did it to our own citizens during WWII. Our fear of the Japanese caused us to circumvent constitutional safeguards and “place” American citizens of Japanese dissent in crude internment camps under armed guard for almost four years. Over half of the “detainees” were children. 50 years after the fact, our government ended up issuing a formal apology and settling with the “detainees” to the tune of $20,000 each. Was it worth it?
[July 2, 2008 7:21 PM]
HERB KREBSDan,
I cant believe I am hearing you call an American citizen un-patriotic when you and your left wing liberals have done nothing short of try to destroy this country from the inside out. The liberal media no longer does true journalism. They go to the blogs of thier choice and write it as Fact. Is this the kind of America you want. You guys just keep talking on the EB, I here your paper is up for possible sale. Might want to visit the VEC. The new company needs subscribers not EB members calling people unpatriotic and writing untruths.
[July 3, 2008 10:06 PM]
JimTough procedures are just another word for justice for tyrants without uniforms responsible for killing US military and their own civilians.
"Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current [wiretap bill]." - Barack Husein Obama on FISA
"“You elected the Democratic Party for this purpose." - Bin Laden supporting the Democrats for their surrender tactics