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Saturday, August 7th, 2004

More on that whole due process thing

The arguments from the government about whether they have the right to hold people without due process continues: Scotus blog has a good tracking on this.

The primary argument I hear from supporters of the government’s position is that we can’t risk allowing suspected terrorists access to open court.

Based on the readings I’ve done of the procedings, there is not any sense that the plaintiffs are seeking “open” court–just *any* court. Court room trials have been closed many times in the past; surely classified information could be easily be protected by a similar measure. I haven’t heard any lawyers suggesting the plaintiffs be allowed to go on Oprah or the O’Reilly Factor, either.

The other issue is that none of these people have been charged with any crime. They were detained because they were in a particular place at a particular time. That’s all. Basically, this whole thing comes down to a game of odds that we actually grabbed the right people.

Are many of them guilty of fighting US troops in Afganistan? Almost certainly.

Are all of them guilty of that? Hm…less certain. Since we don’t know a single detail about these people or the circumstances of their capture, I can’t say one way or another. It’s possible that one half of one percent of them were arrested by mistake, in the wrong place at the wrong time. That would only be…3? 4?

Does taking up arms against what you have been told is an invading army make you a terrorist? Lord, I hope not, otherwise a large number of my heroes from American history are terrorists and I’ll have to repudiate them. (Oh, wait, Nathanial Hale was hanged as a traitor…never mind…)

Are at least some of these prisoners Taliban or Al Queda members? High probability of this, yes.

Are all of them? Again, we have no way of estimating the odds of this. Suppose one of them was in a bakery owned by a Taliban member and was arrested in a raid? Was he there to plan a terrorist attack? Or just buying some bread?

We don’t know. We can’t possibly know until the facts of the case are laid out before the justice system and decided by an approved, neutral party. It’s called due process. It’s why the burden of proof is on the prosecution, why people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. It is what has always separated America from dictatorships and has always been a main component of this nation’s idealistic superiority. Without this principle, how are we different than the people we are supposed to be fighting?

If they’re found guilty, hell, draw and quarter ‘em. (I’m too much of a vindictive bitch to maintain a pretense of pacifism.) But for gods sake, FIND THEM GUILTY FIRST!

Trial. Then punishment.

It’s not that hard.

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