US considers permanent detentions

[CHIMO]

The US government has begun to plan for the possible lifetime imprisonment of detainees it does not have enough evidence to charge in court, according to The Washington Post.

The Defence Department - which holds at least 500 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay - plans to ask the US Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, defence officials told the newspaper.

The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, the newspaper reported.
One proposal would transfer large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the US military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention centre into new US-built prisons in their home countries, it said.


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A7ACC53F-2AF1-4BFB-9D63-AFE1B7A66A4B.htm

[Sandpiper]

1. Bushco seeking to exercise more extra-constitutional authority

The Executive has no constitutional authority to permanently detain anyone without charges.

[Julius Civitatus]

41. They used to call them GULAGS

in Soviet Russia. It seems like the Bush administration is taking a page off their book.

[melnjones]

2. Also here...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20050102/ts_nm/security_usa_dc

I'm always a little leery of al jazeera, but lo and behold, reuters says the same thing, so there ya have it.

[lostnfound]

11. Hi there

Not to say Al Jazeera is completely unbiased, but have you seen the Control Room? It's a great movie, a documentary about Al Jazeera and their coverage in the leadup to and during the war -- well-worth watching. I've taken some moderate friends and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

[leesa]

49. Interesting title on the Yahoo version...

"Senator Says Lifetime Terror Detentions 'Bad Idea'"

With the first paragraph featuring a Republican Senator going on and on about how this is a bad idea. I see. Republicans must be against this.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. Well, here we go

Now, they won't need to come and "disappear" somebody under the cover of darkness at 3 am. They can just take you anywhere, anytime and tell the world that Section such and such says they can.

Ain't freedom grand? :eyes:

[CHIMO]

5. They Don't

Have to tell you section such and such.

Listen to The Ring of Fire. There is a repeat broadcast on Sunday on AAR.

[0007]

20. 'Tis called the big stick. "Big Brother & The Big Stick"

[darkism]

4. Nothing like a piece of news

to make my jaw drop and my eyes tear up and remember the good old days when this was a democracy...

[shraby]

7. I sent the Reuters story to my senator

Russ Feingold.

The Supremes ruled that they couldn't detain those prisoners indefinitely.

[MidwestTransplant]

19. We couldn't hold them indefinately in our own territory

I wonder if that extends to US run prisons in foreign countries.

[LynnTheDem]

21. And I really thought they couldn't make my jaw drop any more.

Now we're a nation who puts people in jail for life when there isn't enough evidence to charge them with anything.

Let's see...what other nation's leaders have done/do that? Not pretty company.

[Art_from_Ark]

37. Gee, wasn't, um, SADDAM reputed to have done that?

[LynnTheDem]

38. Yep. bush is very determined to one-upmanship Saddam Hussein.

Torture? Genocide? Rape? Invasions & occupations?

Locking away for life with no evidence of wrong-doing?

NO PROBLEM! bush can do it better than Hussein!

[saigon68]

40. MAYBE A LITTLE ANAL RAPE TOO

How about just burning the POOR BASTARDS AT THE STAKE ??

ALA THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE 17TH CENTURY?

[ikojo]

46. Often hate causes one to become that which one

hated.

This is not surprising at all.

[Solly Mack]

6. "possible lifetime imprisonment of detainees it does not have enough

evidence to charge in court"

YOUR government. MY government. Wants to give people -

a lifetime in prison for those (it) "...does not have enough evidence to charge in court"


HEAR THAT AMERICA?!!!??!!!!!????!!!!

America's dead.

[complain jane]

8. I was just thinking the same thing....

Talk about everything being fucking backwards, Jesus.

[Solly Mack]

9. and you know some Americans will embrace this, never once

realising it can be used against them as well.

Bush supporters are literally embracing (and celebrating) their own imprisonment.

[daleo]

10. Plato said democracy could degenerate into tyranny

In The Republic, Book VIII. Bush is doing his level best to prove him right. Lifetime detention without trial is the very definition of tyranny. Even the Soviets probably gave kangaroo court trials.

[Merlin]

12. Christ! It's NOT just Al Jazeera! It's WaPo and Reuters, too!

This obviously despicable proposal sounds like a Rovian trick to me.

It sounds to me like when the Electric company announces a giant rate increase, and everybody in the world screams bloody murder. Then, after months of "negotiating" with "public officials" the news is announced "Proposed massive rate increase cut in half." Everybody is supposed to feel good.

It isn't possible that these people are stupid enough to trot out a proposal so obviously likely to get people up in arms. Sounds more like they actually want something half way between, and this is to pave the way.

[Solly Mack]

13. Post# 2 has a link to yahoo news

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20050102/ts_nm/security_usa_

[Merlin]

16. Thanks. n/t

.

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. I think you're over-optimistic that people will be up in arms

The House of Representatives was initially happy to pass a bill that said it was fine to send people to countries that were likely to torture them; I fear most of Bush's supporters feel the same.

Here's the Washington Post article:

One approach used by the CIA has been to transfer captives it picks up abroad to third countries willing to hold them indefinitely and without public proceedings. The transfers, called "renditions," depend on arrangements between the United States and other countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan, that agree to have local security services hold certain terror suspects in their facilities for interrogation by CIA and foreign liaison officers.
...
"The whole idea has become a corruption of renditions," said one CIA officer who has been involved in the practice. "It's not rendering to justice, it's kidnapping."

But top intelligence officials and other experts, including former CIA director George J. Tenet in his testimony before Congress, say renditions are an effective method of disrupting terrorist cells and persuading detainees to reveal information.

"Renditions are the most effective way to hold people," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror." "The threat of sending someone to one of these countries is very important. In Europe, the custodial interrogations have yielded almost nothing" because they do not use the threat of sending detainees to a country where they are likely to be tortured.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41475-2005Jan1.html

They've already defended the idea of keeping someone in prison without any process, and using the threat of torture. The outcry wasn't that big.

[Merlin]

36. Well, based upon our apparent inability to stir up any kind of ruckus...

about anything, maybe you're right.

So if we don't have enough evidence to bring somebody to trial, the next best thing is to jail them for life in countries or facilities where they are likely to be as brutally treated and tortured as possible!

Maybe all we can really do is hope and pray that our descendants will look back upon this in dismay. How have we sunk so damn low?

Having said that, I still think the ironic juxtaposition of "not enough evidence for trial" and "therefore prison for life" may possibly be enough to break through to public consciousness--provided at least one of our enlightened but spineless leaders has the balls to raise hell about it.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Solly Mack]

15. scratch....sniff sniff....scratch....sniff sniff

hmmmmmmmm...

[neweurope]

17. I fear for all of you.

"The US government has begun to plan for the possible lifetime imprisonment of detainees it does not have enough evidence to charge"

This is FASCIST.

Next in line might be you.

All the laws in PATRIOT were supposed to be against "terrorists" which is why there were no demonstrations all over the place. People never understand that the law has to be upheld for everybody or there is no security for anybody (even here - reading some of that spiteful stuff about the American lawyer who'll co-defend Hussein). Now already a "gang member" is being tried on that "terrorist"-basis. Oh yes, none of you are terrorists, none of you are gang members. But it's just a matter of definition - and the freedom of definition is not yours but theirs.

"When they came to get the communists I didn't say anything because I was no communist.

When they came to get the Jews I didn't say anything because I was no Jew.

...When they came to get me there was nobody left to speak out for me."

[LynnTheDem]

18. Jebus fucking Cripes.

May God forgive us. The world sure won't.

[Vidar]

22. jr's concentration camps must make poppy proud.

[TomClash]

23. They cannot apply this standard to United States Citizens

A clear majority of the Supreme Court said so in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld , including Rehnquist. No citizen can be indefinitely detained without counsel and a hearing, even if captured abroad in an active war zone.

[LynnTheDem]

24. And bush gives a shit what the SC says?

It just makes us even worse in the eyes of the world, anyways; US citizens can't be given life in prison when there's not enough evidence to charge them with anything...but every other citizen in the world can be?

Just proves to the world that the USA is the biggest hypocrite on the planet, and the Hitler concept of untermenschen is alive and well.

[TomClash]

26. The Supreme Court gives a shit

And I didn't say I agreed with Bush's policy, did I?

[LynnTheDem]

28. And the SC's army will make bush obey?

I know you didn't say you agreed, and I never thought (and never said) that you did agree.

All I'm saying is bush doesn't give a shit what the SC does or doesn't say.

As the bushCartel already pointed out, the SC doesn't have an army to enforce their decisions.

[TomClash]

30. Neither does Bush . . .

. . . if he starts rounding up US citizens.

Support for the lame duck is already fading fast.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking we don't have resources. Or allies.

[LynnTheDem]

33. I'm not going to bet on that.

50% of this country would be more than happy to see ANY US citizen who happens to be a progressive locked up. For any bullshit reason.

bush lied his ass off about Iraq...yet we're into our 2nd year of occupation there. Truth didn't stop that from happening.

The majority of Americans think having our own concentration Camp Gitmo is just fine & dandy. They won't object when the death chambers are finished and bush starts ordering the executions. So what if a few US citizens find themselves in Gitmo? I didn't hear any massive outrage from Americans when there was an American at Gitmo.

The US Stenomedia will simply crank up their "liberals are the enemy, liberals are terrorists, liberals are anti-Americans" rhetoric to pave the way for US citizen liberals to be stripped of citizenship and locked away for life.

[TomClash]

39. Bet?

I wouldn't exactly bet the ranch on massive detention of US citizens - absent another significant terrorist attack. That's the only possible scenario I see for what you are suggesting.

Bush's power is declining. No one needs him. He's not even popular. I think you underestimate the dislike for him within his own party.

[Minstrel Boy]

25. What about stripping citizenship from "terrorists" and their sympathizers?

Isn't that a provision of Patriot Act II?

[TomClash]

29. True but . . .

. . . if that doesn't violate what's left of the 4th Amendment then what does? I would be surprised if any Court but the 4th Circuit upheld this.

Even more so than abortion, this emphasises how important the next Supreme Court appointment is - and why that person cannot be Gonzalez.

[spooked]

31. When will they start calling DU the "terrorist"?

[LynnTheDem]

34. When they do, we'll be sharing room at Gitmo with a lot of freepers.

PA2 says ANYONE for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER involved with a "terrorist organization"; that includes ANYONE who posts on DU, EVEN FREEPERS.

Explicitly stated in PA2 is ANYONE who SUBSCRIBES in ANY WAY to a "terrorist organization".

The US gov isn't going to sort through posts to see who said mean things about bush ("terrorist") and who defended bush ("patriot"); the PA2 says EVERYONE PERIOD.

[spooked]

42. Luckily they're only asking for 200 Beds!

Strength in Numbers!!

[TomClash]

48. PA2 has a snowball's chance in hell of passing the Congress nt

[The Zanti Regent]

27. Jesusland = Nazi Germany

They are coming for YOU and it's only a matter of time.

[Kesha]

44. Been there, done that...

I don`t think the mayority of the 30's Germans saw what's coming.

Today, in times of internet, no one has such an excuse...

[HeeBGBz]

35. Isn't it lovely

The US is going to experience some ugly times.

See you at the camps.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. That is sick

The Constitution is now equivalent to toilet paper. :-(

"We don't have enough evidence to charge you, but we'll keep you for the rest of your life just because we can." :grr:

Sure, supposedly it doesn't apply to U.S. citizens, but in my lifetime, the Constitution has always been thought to apply to human beings.

[LizW]

45. Just when you think it can't get more incredible

This is typical Bushco logic. It's the outcome of the Bush Torture policy. When he kidnaps people from their countries and takes them to Guantanamo, imprisons, tortures and mistreats them for years without bringing charges (or even trying to get enought evidence to bring charges), he turns these people into terrorists if they weren't before. What is he going to do with them when he is finished with them, when they have no use anymore, and he still can't charge them with anything? (Because of course they can never be allowed to testify in court about their treatment)

If he lets them go, they are now dangerous, and they will be free to tell what Bush did to them. Solution: disappearance into permanent prisons in foreign countries.

I hope everyone has seen all of the world they wanted to, because soon it will be impossibly dangerous for Americans to travel outside the U.S.

[lovuian]

47. Detention forever and is Bush president forever!!!

Nothing is forever folks!!!

[Moderator]

50. duplicate

locking. discuss here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1114941