Prometheus 6

Quote of note:

The Post reported that the Pentagon and CIA had asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for handling detainees, including hundreds of individuals currently in custody but with insufficient evidence against them to bring to a court.

I know. How about letting them go home? We made the error of arresting hundreds of people without evidence. Their only mistake was...being arrested without evidence.

Actually, I think this is a distraction so that whatever they decide to do (which, if immediately suggested, is likely to be seen as immoral) seems reasonable by comparison. Same thing they do with economic projections.

Anyway...

Plan to Keep Detainees in Jail for Life Criticized by Senators

From Times Staff and Wire Reports

January 3, 2005

WASHINGTON   The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sunday dismissed as "a bad idea" a reported U.S. government plan to keep some suspected terrorists in custody for their lifetime, even if there was not enough evidence to bring them before a judge.

Both Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that the proposal, reported in Sunday's Washington Post, was unconstitutional.

"There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process   if you're going to detain people, whether it's for life or whether it's for years," Levin said on "Fox News Sunday."

Detaining individuals for life without judicial review "is a bad idea," Lugar said on the same program. "So we ought to get over it, and we ought to have a very careful, constitutional look at this."