Me thinks it's a lose, lose situation.

Yeah, I'll join the ACLU when [b]Jesus Christ[/b] tells me to join the ACLU, and He hates their guts![:D]

So this POS is worth losing sleep over? We must just agree to disagree on this one, buddy!

My 'fear of government' radar hasn't gone off on this one, and it's a finely tuned mechanism!

If this POS actively plotted this crime in Pakistan or elsewhere, I say save the time and effort for a trial and send him back there for trial and imprisonment.

Same as we should do for 'Jihad Johnny' Walker.

I would much rather see these POSs getting Islamic justice, which they so doggedly served during their adult lives, than good old US due process, which they actively fought against!

Eric The(ThisIsWar,Baby!)Hun[>]:)]

How can we forget?  Sorry, no sympathy at all for a TRAITOR who plotted with the enemy DURING WARTIME to kill Americans. He forfeited his rights when he conspired with the enemy.

Da boy goin' down...  Rightfully so...  [^]

So, [b]DK-Prof[/b], what makes you think 'due process' doesn't apply in [u]any[/u] trial that is conducted by the United States?

If it's conducted under military tribunal rules, the procedures are just different, that's all.

It's the same judicial procedure as our men and women in the military have available.

So this POS, in a time of war, is to be considered as 'better' than our military?

Yeah, right!

Eric The(Hang'EmHigh!)Hun[>]:)]

The facts will eventually come out. But you have to admit, the fact he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet with Al-Qaeda types doesn't help his case any. That alone is reason enough to hold him.

If you travelled to Italy, Germany, or Japan during WWII, would you expect to be treated differently?

This is war.

much as i'd like for these guys to turn up at the bottom of a compost heap, only congress has the authority to declare war. i suspect "due process" is about to be thrown out with the bath water.

War HAS been declared...against us, by our enemies.  If you think WE have to declare war for there to be a war, you've got another think coming.

The United States hasn't formally declared war since World War II. And though declaring war on terrorism may sound as vague as declaring a war on drugs, legally, it can be done.

Were the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in effect a declaration of war?
Declarations of war are a custom, and not always adhered to. What happened was this: Because war is ugly and violent and chaotic, the international community, over time, developed a set of wartime customs and conventions.

This began with ancient civilizations, and has evolved now to the point where there are laws dictating how the wounded must be protected, how to handle prisoners of war, and what weapons are not to be used. And of course, how to declare war.

However, some feel that, in the last 50 years, wars and other conflicts have gotten more lawless.

And today, it seems as though 'declaring war' is an out-of-date formality. In a May 1999 press briefing regarding NATO’s role in Kosovo, David Scheffer, Ambassador at Large of the U.S. State Department for War Crimes Issues said: 'There is no need at all for a declaration of war for the laws of war to apply. The Geneva Conventions don’t require it nor does customary international law, so that is simply not a necessary trigger for these laws to apply.'

So yes, the attacks could be seen, in effect, a declaration of war.

So is the United States now at war?

Yes. The President declared the U.S. to be at war, and that is legal.

Here's how it works.

According to Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war. However, Article 2, Section 2 names the president as 'Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy.' As such, presidents have often bypassed Congress to go to war (whether "declared" or not). President Harry Truman was the first to do that, to go to war in Korea. And ever since, presidents have rarely asked permission.

In 1973, the U.S. Congress tried to reassert itself by passing the War Powers Resolution. (This after Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon ignored Congress while perpetuating the war in Vietnam.) Also known as the War Powers Act, the law states that, without a declaration of war, the president must inform Congress within 48 hours of beginning hostilities. Again, presidents have generally ignored this law.

[b]So yes, if Bush says we're at war, we're at war.[/b]

How can the United States be at war if it doesn't know who its enemy is?  And what if the perpetrator is in fact a terrorist group, not a nation?

As strange as it may seem, the United States actually has a precedent for declaring war against groups – even vague, nebulous groups- rather than nations.

Here's the precedent: Two centuries ago, piracy was a constant threat to American ships and harbours. So much so that the Constitution laid out parameters for their punishment.

In 1801, under this article, the American Congress authorized President Thomas Jefferson to send the U.S. Navy to fight the Barbary pirates along the coastline of northern Africa. These pirates weren't a nation, didn’t have a capital, national anthem, or embassy - but this made no difference.

Eric The(See!)Hun[>]:)]

I'm sure that 10,000 years from now, when the radioctive cloud finally fades, that all of the surviving cockroaches and scorpions will appreciate that we kept their Constitutional rights intact.

We need Thomas Jefferson to come back and take care of some of the butt pirates around here. Things are getting out of hand in San Francisco.

Whatever Ashcroft is or ain't doin', joinin' the [b]A[/b]merican [b]CLU[/b]eless union ain't the answer.

"protect you" from WHAT??

WTF do you want to protect this guy from?

From being arrested?

From being treated like a suspected traitor who is plotting domestic attacks with radioactive weapons??

From being "detained" by the Defense Department because he met with, planned with and directly aided the most immediately dangerous international foreign terrorist organization in the world in their plots to attack America with radioactive weapons while travelling abroad??

Would you rather this be turned over to local police department to investigate??

[b]DK-Prof[/b], don't be such a fool.

This Jose or Abdullah or whatever gave up his citizenship when he took up arms against this country for another country (or in this case a group/organization).  So whine all you want...

Geez...the ACLU, tell you what, I'll join them the day after I die.

well hopfuylly this us citizens civil rights stay intact. oops, i ment to say hopfully he recivecs a death fitting to a trator and terrorist.

DK-Prof, maybe they should just let him go and wait and see if he detonates a dirty bomb the united states. i dint know about you, but im hoping its not my family that dies from radation poisioning. i guess thats probly just me. each to his own i guess.

DK-Prof, all of us weren't wrong.  I still can't believe some people here side against the Bill of Rights.

cgwahl wrote:


I once heard a Democ[b]rat[/b] say the same thing about gun owners, and he even cited Supreme Court rulings backing-up his opinion.  As a gun owner, I find the above scary.  How much longer before you hear Democrats try to strip citizenship from suspected members of militias?  cgwahl, think about what you're proposing.

Paul wrote:


How so?  How do they protect the rights of the accused better than civilian courts?z

If Jose left this country, and went to Pakistan, and met with Al Qaeda, and trained with them, and entered into a pact with them to destroy America....

...I have no problem with stripping him of his citizenship.

I have no problem with putting him before a firing squad.

I have no problem with lighting him on fire.

I have no problem with boiling him in oil.


The idea that there's this slippery slope, where if we try this shitbag before a tribunal, that presto! GUN-OWNERS ARE NEXT! ...is foolish.

U.S. Constitution:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

DK-Prof, unless your head is firmly in the sand, you'll notice that a lot of members here are eager to destroy our country and Constitution. For defense against the neo-Nazis threatening our country, I'm relying not on the ACLU, but on my weapons.

All this shit boils down to the govt. not wanting the case to go to civilian court, because if that were the case, the defense attorney could petition the judge to order the govt. to disclose the source of their evidence. In EVERY other situation, you want the govt. to be up front, but in this case, during time of war, the last thing you want is for the govt. to have to give up their clandestine procedures, informants, etc., as in doing so, they may not be able to use them again.

This is a very strange situation. The feds have no authority to try civilians in military tribunals, regardless of Bush's EO. And Congress can't even make law to do so. This is thoroughly unconstitutional. Yet, we don't want to cripple the feds investigatory efficacy during times of national crisis.

This really is "interesting times" and this is a major test of the Constitution.

BTW, Congress holds closed sessions all the time for national security reasons. Can't we put together something like a closed civilian court? Something leak proof? But I guess is the defendent is allowed to hear all the evidence, the feds are screwed.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on television.

How 'bout peeling him like a grape, then soaking him in brine solution????

[}:D]

Post from level3 -

Yes, that is the amendment, all right, but you will note that the actual procedures and guidelines for such a fair and impartial trial are not further delineanted in this article.

Congress has been given authority to decide how this amendment is to be carried out, and it has been that way since the very beginning of this Republic.

If Congress has determined that someone, such as this POS, can be tried before a military tribunal, for the type and nature of the criminal act for which he has been charged, there is simply no reason to get worried.

This fellow will get the same sort of trial given to the German saboteurs seized during WWII. Which the US Supreme Court blessed.

The Republic did not fall, nor did it falter.

To see if there is a problem, go back to that period in American History when 'we were doing things right' whatever period that may be for you.

Was this type of trial constitutionally permissible then? Well, it still is.

Eric The(Constitutional)Hun[>]:)]

THANK YOU.



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Good one DK!

"Oh, but he's just be an Arab-American, he ain't worth nufin'.  Yeeehawww, go get 'em Bush!"

---------  

sheeple:  "Um, the Patriot Act will be repealed when the (undeclared) war is over, right?"

me:  "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Will we never learn?"

sheeple:  "Ashcroft and Bush will bring the war to a quick end."

me (laughing even harder):  "Every day, Ashcroft and Bush further show their ignorance (not to mention their thirst for oil).  This quasi-war is here to stay."

-----------

DK, another one just as sad as "but we're at war" is "war was declared, ON US."  I've seen that one hundreds of times.

These seem to be the constitutional requirements:
"The Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be by Jury;"
"No person shall be held to answer for a[n] . . . infamous crime, unless on a presentment of a Grand Jury;"
"due process;"
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a . . . public trial;"
"confronted with the witnesses against him;"
"the right of trial by jury shall be preserved."

Anyone know if the military tribunals include these rights?

I have thought about what I'm proposing and there is a big difference between militias and what is happening.  If this were Vietnam or Korea or World War 2 (heck even Somalia) and I not only sided with the enemy but took up arms with the enemy am I still a US citizen?  I believe the answer is no...if anything its treason.

Al'Queda is an enemy who declared war against us.  Sure, the US has yet to do it, perhaps it is unable to do it, or unwilling to do so.  But we are at war...this Jose fellow joined up with Al'Queda or some other organization similar to them, and took up arms (in the case a bomb) with the intent to use it.  In my eyes he either has committed treason, is no longer a US citizen or both.

It is unfortunate that militias or gun owners in the United States can be looked under the same light.  In some ways maybe they should be, but the way I see things, there is a difference.  May not be easy to see, but its there...

That, too.

The Supreme Court case which says this is groovy is Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942).

[b]Where do the words "military tribunal" occur in the story you quoted?[/b]

All I see is this maggot was "detained" and is now questioned by DOD because he tried to enter the country from Pakistan with plans to commit acts of war against this nation.

To me, that's taking up arms against this nation and is treason. Sure, it's well known that "conspiracy to commit treason is not treason" BUT this is very different.

US Constitution Article III, Section 3. "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, [b][red]or[/red] in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.[/b]"

Seems this man probably HAS committed treason and probably DOES have immediately useful information about foreign Al Qaida terrorist operations.

So I would EXPECT the DOD to get involved.

You jumped the gun on this one assuming the "military tribunal" is already underway and the BOR is TP for this guy.

There's also questions raised here of whether he actually gave up his citizenship by committing those acts of treason in Pakistan.

Before your panties get too much in a knot, wait to see what this guy is charged with, what venue has proper jurisdiction for this "crime" and whether he or not can even properly be considered a "citizen" anymore.

You're SO eager to be right that your paranoid  imagination exceeded the LIMITED facts presented in the story.

He is being held and will be tried under the precident set in the US vs. Haupt, nothing more or less.

Though I am suprised that the US would use a US citizen as the FIRST case for tribunals.

They must have this guy just covered. A lot more so than Taliban John.

Whoops, wrong case.

The controlling case would be [i]EX PARTE QUIRIN,[/i] 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
[url]http://laws.findlaw.com/us/317/1.html[/url]

[i]Haupt[/i] is a related case that does have some bearing on this though [url]http://laws.findlaw.com/us/330/631.html[/url]

You know what?  All else being equal, I would actually PREFER a military tribunal over a civilian trial.  I have seen a few in action (on both sides!) and I agree with the esteemed COL Cooper in his recent quote...

"A military board will attempt to find out what happened.  A civilian trial is all too often a confrontation between technicians."

Too much is made of technicalities and semantics in a civilian trial.  Generally, a military tribunal turns out to be a case tried strictly upon its merits, and the Court remains a trier of fact.  As far as a "jury" goes, it will be three ranking officers as opposed to twelve stacked citizens.  I have not heard of "Jury stacking" taking place with courts-martial.  As far as a Grand Jury requirement - who is to say that you cannot have a Grand Jury refer to a tribunal over a trial?

Given the incidence of criminals getting off due  to points of semantics, interpretations of vaguely-written laws (the letter of the law vice the spirit of the law,) technicalities in points of law, or superceding the merits of the individual case with precedents (Tort Law, IIRC) which may or may not have anything at all to do with the case before the Court, I would vastly prefer a more "military" approach to trials in general.  

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

As far as the "declaration of war" goes, the points raised about POTUD being CinC is entirely correct.  Also, remember that we have been in a declared "State of Emergency" since, oh, 1932 or so and war has been declared upon US.  We should not have to wait for an Act of Congress to return the favour, so to speak...

FFZ

I said that questions were "raised here" because I don't know the details of how that works but others here seem to have implied it was written in the Constitution somewhere. I didn't say that I was clear in that notion and it should be done.

No. He didn't just "talk to the wrong people" he went out of the country to meet with known terrorists then returned with plans to commit acts of war against us.

That's a bit more than just "associating" with baddies.

It seems to clearly fall under the "acts of treason" stated in the Constitution that I quoted.



Hmmmmm.... why the qualifier?? [;)]

Some may be blase about it.

I don't think I am. I'm just waiting for more facts about what he's going to be charged with.

Bush's own rules for military tribunals provides thatThe title of the order is "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain [red]Non-Citizens[/red] in the War Against Terrorism."

This morning the press was reporting that they were going to try this guy using a military tribunal, but I guess they have changed their tune.


This actually sounds worse to me.  Has the right of habeas corpus been suspended?

Macallan,

Citizenship status is irrelevant in this case:

from [i]EX PARTE QUIRIN,[/i] 317 U.S. 1 (1942) [url]laws.findlaw.com/us/317/1.html[/url]

"We have acted under the laws of war and under the clear Supreme Court precedent which established that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts."

I guess I really don't understand what Ashcroft is supposed to have done that's wrong. They singled this guy out, not because he "looks like a terrorist", but because of information gained by interrogating captured Al Qaeda, including a high ranking leader, and several other sources, all of whose stories corroborated each others. He wasn't singled out for just any old reason. You don't think airline security got suspicious and just called Ashcroft for instructions, do you?

CBS News 'unnaimed Defense Department sources' are wrong. He would not be held in a Navy brig in South Carolina if he was not going to be tried by a military tribunal.

The Bush Administrations original intent not to try American citizens was motivated in part by a belief that no American citizens would be found this deeply involved in terror plots. This guy makes number 3.

But check this out:

Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957).  Very interesting case.  Four justices joined in the majority opinion, which rejected the trial of citizens in military courts.  The concurring opinions state that military justice for civilians is only OK in times of war.

I guess those military tribunals, as applied to US citizens, are perhaps not so constitutional after all.

Sorry, Imposter doesn't apply

Not a wartime case. The defendant wasn't charged under the UCMJ either.

But I suppose it could be used as a attempt to overturn the World War II cases. Doubt that the SCOUTS would hear it so long as the Government does nothing to deviate from the plan followed in [i]QUIRIN[/i]. If they tried to interject some new twist in the proceedings there would be more grounds to revisit.

Gah, that sucks because I can see both sides.

I guess my only comment in this debate is that the constitution and the bill of rights isn't much comfort to dead people, which is what this person most likely wants to make us.

-legrue

Arguably, this one is not either.

Article 2(11) UCMJ, actually.

Thanks for the citation [b]ArmdLbrl[/b].

Seems we may be entering a debate on the meaning of "wartime".  

Does that necessitate a Congressional declaration of war for [i]EX PARTE QUIRIN[/i] and its references to "law of war" to be relevant?