Don't worry libtard bots, I will close Guantanamo

[catastrophe]

Why should we close Gitmo?

Seems like an expensive outpost to maintain, in addition to the problem people have with indefinitely detaining prisoners without any charges.

Maybe, but I kinda like owning a piece of Cuba, and that Cuba can't do crap about it. And I don't have a problem with indefinitely detaining prisoners taken on the battlefield. It's a war.

The other issue with Guantanamo is that we really don't want to call them POW either.

[sonofdaxjones]

Moving them to the US further enhances the ability to indefinitely detain.  ProgLibs won't recall because they're dumb, but this administration tried to get massively broadened powers to detain without charge.

How so?

It adds an air of legitimacy to indefinite detention, likely makes it more benign in the wrong minds.

[Emo EMAW]

Obama's plan is only to close the detention center, not the entire naval base, correct?

[ednksu]

Obama's plan is only to close the detention center, not the entire naval base, correct?

that is my understanding

[ednksu]

Moving them to the US further enhances the ability to indefinitely detain.  ProgLibs won't recall because they're dumb, but this administration tried to get massively broadened powers to detain without charge.

How so?

It adds an air of legitimacy to indefinite detention, likely makes it more benign in the wrong minds.

Almost posted facts.....almost.....

W actually hosed them by declaring them enemy combatants instead of POWs.

[catastrophe]

The reason we didn't want them on US soil is because then they can Habeus Corpus like crazy. People in US prisons have, like, constitutional rights and stuff.

[sonofdaxjones]

Moving them to the US further enhances the ability to indefinitely detain.  ProgLibs won't recall because they're dumb, but this administration tried to get massively broadened powers to detain without charge.

How so?

It adds an air of legitimacy to indefinite detention, likely makes it more benign in the wrong minds.

Almost posted facts.....almost.....

W actually hosed them by declaring them enemy combatants instead of POWs.

You're at least 12 steps behind Whackadoodle. 

[catastrophe]

When you are in the US prison system, the US constitution applies to you. That doesn't mean particular criminal laws apply to you, but constitutional rights always will.

[ednksu]

When you are in the US prison system, the US constitution applies to you. That doesn't mean particular criminal laws apply to you, but constitutional rights always will.

No, not as enemy combatants. 

[catastrophe]

How many enemy combatants do we have in U.S. prisons currently? I really don't know the answer, but to the extent there are any, I would be very surprised if they were treated as having different rights than their cell mates.

[ednksu]

How many enemy combatants do we have in U.S. prisons currently? I really don't know the answer, but to the extent there are any, I would be very surprised if they were treated as having different rights than their cell mates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaser_Esam_Hamdi#U.S._Supreme_Court_decision

So the weird thing that happend with Hamdi is this new form of challenging your detention through a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.  So they aren't using Federal criminal courts in the process, and citizens still get their writ, but not in ways we've ever really seen before. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(prisoner)#District_Court_for_South_Carolina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdan_v._Rumsfeld
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act_of_2006


I mean it's a dumpster fire of legal maneuvering.  The odd thing is that Powell was proved right in his assertion that treating them as POWs would be more convenient because the "war on terror" has no real end date, way to declare the "war" over.  As such you can keep POWs detained indefinitely. 
http://www.acslaw.org/pdf/enemycombatants.pdf

[catastrophe]

Too lazy to do my own research, but I'm not sure that stuff really supports that enemy combatants can be detained indefinitely, and it definitely doesn't indicate that those people are held in US prisons.

It looks like the S.C. case that held Padilla could not file for Habeas was never challenged because he was actually indicted soon after. The article you pasted at the end was written in 2004, before a lot of this stuff really got tested in court.

At best, it's an open issue, but it's one that I guarantee the Pres does not want to deal with on US soil.

[sonofdaxjones]

Alas the Obama administration wanted to expand enemy combatants to also apply to home grown "terrorists" with expanded powers to declare such by decree (similar to the guilty by mere prescence as seen in the drone assassination program).   Thus allowing the administration to indefinitely detain US citizens.   Moving the Gitmo indefinitely detained into the 50, only makes the quest to that end easier.

Even Whackadoodle's hero Rachel Maddow had a meltdown about this when the first trial balloons went up.

But then again this administration has virulently defended the Patriot Act et al in court many, many times.

[michigancat]

Alas the Obama administration wanted to expand enemy combatants to also apply to home grown "terrorists" with expanded powers to declare such by decree (similar to the guilty by mere prescence as seen in the drone assassination program).   Thus allowing the administration to indefinitely detain US citizens.   Moving the Gitmo indefinitely detained into the 50, only makes the quest to that end easier.

Even Whackadoodle's hero Rachel Maddow had a meltdown about this when the first trial balloons went up.

But then again this administration has virulently defended the Patriot Act et al in court many, many times.

Yes, Obama has really stunk it up with security/privacy matters.

[ednksu]

Too lazy to do my own research, but I'm not sure that stuff really supports that enemy combatants can be detained indefinitely, and it definitely doesn't indicate that those people are held in US prisons.

It looks like the S.C. case that held Padilla could not file for Habeas was never challenged because he was actually indicted soon after. The article you pasted at the end was written in 2004, before a lot of this stuff really got tested in court.

At best, it's an open issue, but it's one that I guarantee the Pres does not want to deal with on US soil.

Not quite.  There are a few enemy combatants who are in federal pens.  Part of the Hamdi ruling was that they had to have a system to challenge their detentions.  The issue we have now is that many of the prisoners now have no country to take them (basically US wants them gone) or the US doesn't have enough/proper/legal evidence to prosecute. Hamdi is the guiding case here and the dissent Scalia offered is brilliant.