Key GOP Senators Want Gitmo Prisoners to See Evidence. Bush Says No Today-

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GOP Senators Differ With President on Military Trials

Terrorism Suspects' Right To Information Is at Issue

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 6, 2006; A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501200_pf.html

Key Republican senators have drafted a legislative plan for special military trials of suspected terrorists that diverges from a recent Bush administration plan by granting defendants rights that the White House has sought to proscribe, government officials said yesterday.

Under the lawmakers' plan, any future military trials of the nearly 200 eligible U.S. detainees held in military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other locations around the world would be governed by a law that explicitly ensures that defendants have the right to know the evidence against them.

The Bush administration has long maintained that no law is needed to establish a system of military commissions, as they are known, for trials of terrorism suspects, but the Supreme Court ruled otherwise in June. The administration still contends that military prosecutors should be able to present sensitive evidence to military judges but withhold it from defendants.

But the sponsors of the legislation -- Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) -- disagreed. They have embraced the view of senior uniformed military lawyers that blocking defendants' access to evidence would violate long-standing due-process standards and set a dangerous precedent for trials of captured U.S. military personnel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501200_pf.html



Bush to unveil plan for Gitmo trials

"Military lawyers have urged a solution patterned on the existing system of military courts martial. But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has objected to rules that would give terror suspects the right to remain silent or challenge hearsay evidence."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060906/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

[Jim__]

1. If you don't know what evidence is being used against you ...

... you can't possibly defend yourself against it.

I guess the incompetents in the bush admin seethis as giving them a level playing field.

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3. they know the 'evidence' they have is mostly anecdotal, first-hand

from sources in Afghanistan who have been driven off or killed.

Interesting, related: In the case of 'terror' prisoner Padilla, the judge took the extreme action of actually explaining to the defendant how flimsy and circumstantial the evidence was against him . . .

[mmonk]

2. Ask Barbara Olshansky

what's going on and what rights are being trampled. If you saw Book TV on C-Span where she and Dave Lindorff were discussing their book, "The Case For Impeachment", you'd get an idea. I recommend the book. And by the way, only about 8% of the prisoners are connected directly to terrorism.

[TahitiNut]

4. "... are (ALLEGEDLY) connected directly to terrorism" please.

There has been NO FAIR TRIAL! These people are, in principle, INNOCENT. Imprisoning innocent people for up to five years (now) under "cruel and unusual" conditions is an ABOMINATION of anything remotely approaching respect for human rights!

[mmonk]

6. I should have said accused of belonging to terrorist

organizations. My bad.

[Double T]

5. Our country is entering VERY DANGEROUS TERRITORY........

BY A VERY DANGEROUS PRESIDENT. Members of Congress that still retain their sanity need to act immediately to stop HIS insanity. When 'due process' or the law of the land is attempting to be canceled by a president so that HE can 'produce convicted terrorists to justify HIS WAR' WE have a SERIOUS PROBLEM!!!!

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7. we know how they use rulings as precedent