White House: Acquitted detainees may not be released
Published: July 7, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
The Obama administration signaled Tuesday it may keep terrorism detainees even if they’ve been acquitted.
Chief Department of Defense lawyer Jeh Johnson told a Senate committee “that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat,” according to a report by Jess Bravin in the Wall Street Journal.
Bravin notes that the Bush administration maintained the same stance, “but its legality was never tested.”
Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent characterized Johnson’s response as moving the Obama administration “into new territory from a civil liberties perspective.”
“Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, Johnson said that ‘as a matter of legal authority,’ the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court,” Ackerman wrote.
“If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under a Supreme Court ruling, Johnson remarked, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”
Martinez purportedly appeared surprised. “So the prosecution is moot?” he asked.
“No, no, not in my judgment,” Johnson said.
Additional excerpts from the WSJ article, available in full at this link:
Also at the hearing, Obama administration officials differed with the Navy’s senior uniformed lawyer over whether coerced statements could be used to obtain convictions before military commissions.
… The shape of military commissions is one of the issues administration officials are struggling to resolve so they can meet President Barack Obama’s commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by January…
When running last year for president, Mr. Obama criticized the Bush administration’s military-commission program, which stumbled through years of internal disarray and legal setbacks in an effort to convict aliens of war crimes without affording them constitutional rights.
Johnson also signaled that Guantanamo might remain open after January 2010: “You can’t prosecute some significant subset of 220 people before January,” he said. The Obama Administration plans to continue to detain some of those inmates suspected of terrorist ties, “whether at Guantanamo or somewhere else.”
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SICK.
This is the Bush doctrine in spades. Only Orwell can appreciate this to the fullest. So much for the rule of law. Their resoning is these guys might want to get even for kidnapping and torturing them for years. Well duh. Ever thought about releasing them to the location they kidnapped them from for starters. Maybe Obamanation doesn’e want them spreading the truth about what happened to them.
This crap smacks of the bush administration. The concept that someone can be held indefinitely even if there is no basis to detain them because they were acquitted flies in the face of every legal principal that is part of the American judicial system. The Obama administration really represents “change”. Were we all deceived at election time??
This crap smacks of the Bush REGIME because War Criminal Cheney is still in charge. These Bush Crime Family people didn’t go anywhere in January, just as some of us Nader and McKinney voters said would be the case. Meanwhile, the Dem kool-aid drinkers/Obamabots had their countdown watches/clocks and were wallowing in mindless “hope” and “change we can believe in” propaganda. The Suckers.
The Obama REGIME—and it is indeed a regime because the US Constitution has NOT been restored and is not about to be restored under this War Criminal Obama—is continuing the Bush REGIME and anyone paying close attention already knows that.
No, “we” were not all deceived at election time. The gullible Suckers were. But some of us voted for Nader and McKinney who were/are the real, true, legitimate progressives. We had examined War Criminal Obushma’s Bush-accomplice voting record from the senate and none of this stuff from War Criminal Obama surprises me, as a Nader voter. But the sheep didn’t have the intelligence or foresight to vote for Nader or McKinney, or Kucinich for that matter and he even has a big D behind his name!
Suckers.
And in 2012, the Suckers will repeat the entire exercise all over again by whining, “I MAY not have agreed with SOME of what Obama has done, and Obama MAY not be perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect, but he will be better than the Repug candidate (or at least I choose to believe that) so I’m once again voting for Obama. Go, Obama, go!
Yes, that’s what the Suckers will say. They are as predictable as the sun rising and setting.
This is fucked up. Obama is covering for Bush. They don’t want these guys to get out and talk about how they were treated while in Gitmo. They may also have other incriminating information that would shatter the facade. There is no valid justification for detaining these human beings. When will the citizens get fed up enough to do something? Fascism is here!
Fascism has been here since the Judicial Coup of 2000. Where have you been?
I hope you’re not just NOW realizing that War Criminal Obama is covering for War Criminals Bush/Cheney. He was covering for Bush/Cheney when he served as their accomplice as a senator. Did you not examine his senatorial Bush-accomplice voting record? Or did you just go on his “hope” and “change we can believe in” marketing slogans?
You asked:
“When will the citizens get fed up enough to do something? ”
Most “citizens” could care less. Most are not paying attention and most watch Faux News. Most are watching American Idol.
Don’t expect the “citizens” to do anything but sit on their fat ass drinking coke and eating garbage called “junk food,” that is after they get back from a trip to the mall in their big SUV.
The “valid justification” is that the memory of the false-flag attacks of 9/11/01 haven’t faded sufficiently into the mist of history, and letting these poor souls released from custody blows the whole “Arab Terrorist” meme to Kingdom Come.
They KNOW they didn’t do 9/11/01.
Don’t they?
So…who did?
“The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
From 1984 by George Orwell
[...] http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/07/white-house-acquitted-detainees-may-not-be-released/ [...]
‘…moving the Obama administration “into new territory from a civil liberties perspective.”’
So let’s just be clear here: The Obama administration is advocating for permanent imprisonment of persons found to be not guilty.
So it’s official now, the United States justice system is over.
No, it’s not official “now.” It was official in 2000…the night of the Judicial Coup which selected Bush/Cheney. War Criminal Obama is continuing the Bush regime and agenda, just as us Nader and McKinney voters said would be the case.
Who’d a’ thunk it? Mel Martinez is more interested in prisoners’ rights than Barack Obama.
God Almighty. We need a third party, if we ever needed one.
Actually, we need a second party. The one party that charade as a “two party system” are really one big corporate pro-war, anti-US Constitution, anti-average person, pro-military industrial complex and pro-Wall Street party. These War Criminal parasite D and R millionaires just charade as two for the benefit of those sheep who have been indoctrinated/brainwashed with D and R party-line shit.
Constitutional scholar? In what frakking universe?
oBUSHma = Puppet for the NWO Bankster Gangsters, through and through.
SO now the American in’justice’ system’s idea of an acquittal is “FREED-ish,” or “innocent-ish?”
Okay so granted, “acquittal” is a gvt euphemism for ‘We fucked up, but we don’t want to admit it. Nor, are we going to admit it. So, we’ll still stand by our position that YOU are guilty, but are acquitted of the charges. Which to us, still means you’re hardly innocent, just not guilty of the charges we brought forth.’
A govt HIJACKED by CRIMINAL sycophants of the Wall St. & International Banking Coterie, one that TORTURES, even shaming Nazi-level propaganda and bravado, actually WROTE LEGAL RATIONALIZATION for WarCrimes, one that illegally invades, occupies TWO sovereign nations that did NOT attack us, a third nation, Pakistan, being BOMBED, illegally, without a CONgressional War declaration, murdering civilians via drones, weddings their favorite, a gvt hijacked, to secretly and indefinitely detain AMERICANS and Foreigners alike, without habeas corpus, or charges, one that bails out its banking oligarchic buddies while PublicRelationing to the sheeple public that it’s TARP and will be used to help the masses, CANNOT be trusted to run ANY portion of our lives, or impose its will, and least of which, FORCE us to take untested vaccines, or FORCE us to have socialized “medicare” when all it does is line the pockets of BigPharma.
That the kind of govt you trust? It’s not OUR govt anymore when, as Sen.Dick Durbin stated matter of factly “THIS PLACE IS OWNED BY THE BANKERS.”
That’s who’s torturing, maiming, murdering our fellow American citizens, and Foreigners alike, in OUR NAME, all paid in blood of innocents.
Is anyone so willing to volunteer to accept its “mandatory social services” now? You CANNOT separate the warmonger and the socialist welfarist.
If WalMart, or any other company did what the Fed Gvt.does, whether a portion of its division is guilty or not, the ENTIRE company would be held liable.
Just think on that…
CHANGE!
-Psych, S U C K E R S !!!
And naturally the obamanoids are silent.
Grrrr…
I love how neo-cons are now posing as progressives. You reptiles loved it when your messiah, the shrub, was doing it and cheered it on with glee. The only reason you are against it now is because Obama is allegedly for it.
That said, this is disgraceful of Obama and will continue the already tarnished world view the United States currently enjoys. Of course these people pose a “threat.” Now they do. Unfortunately, most to all of them didn’t when they were first detained.
I know if I were detained by any country indefinitely because of my “politics,” or my ethnic background and/or skin tone, denied due process under the law, tortured, and eventually released, you better believe I would be looking for some payback. And if there are organizations that operate outside the law who have the same agenda, you better believe I would connect with them.
Shit, just because your acquitted in america doesn’t mean your innocent.
So you are found not guilty but then Obama and his administration will keep you anyway because of something you just might do in the future????? I am beginning to think Bush is having a third term after all. Maybe this will become popular enough to keep normal Americans in jail if you have been found not guilty of say robbing a bank but you’ll stay jailed just in case you decide to one day rob a bank in the distant future. Or just throw away the key for drunk drivers because they are sure to be caught again so why waste the time waiting for them to do it again, just keep them? Or perhaps we should just do away with trials altogether and just lock everyone away because it won’t matter anyway. Is this the change you were all looking for with Obama, in that he has morphed into Bush right before your eyes?
They must not ever be allowed to talk to the public ~
How many of these “acquitted” (innocent) detainees were tortured do you suppose? But they might cause quite a bit of trouble (as in legal) for a number of “leaders” (past and present) if they were to be released, so naturally they must continue to be imprisoned indefinitely.
Sickening!
Should I infer from Jeh’s statements that the immanent threat is that of the innocent political prisoners that were wrongfully tortured, disclosing the secrets of torture to news media that is no longer strong-armed by Bush and the Republican Party, and now our policy is, we are clueless and have no idea what to do?
This country is so fucked up, Democrat or Republican it doesn’t matter both should be in jail. I was hoping Obama would help regain what it was to be an American again, but apparently that asking too much, we keep going down this path without just saying we were wrong and Bush and the GOP and now Obama fucked up, the only thing that will help is that of what our ancestors did 250+ years ago.
Revolution
PS - Talk of another stimulus package for the financial institutions that got us into part of this mess, has your 401k gotten reimbursed to what it was prior to the first 700 Billion dollar gift, are you better off today than you were then, AIG and the rest are
Another gift to the people that got us in this finical mess is nothing more then a crime in progress.
Revolution
Its ok, be angry, get pissed, do something!!!
mrethiopian - once a proud American:( & I will be again with your help, its time, fight to keep this once great country.
Some change - and to think that I fell for that “Change You Can Believe in Crap”! It should be obvious by now that all campaign slogans are nothing more than worthless advertising slogans; and all politicians once in office will completely renege on any such promises. The 2 party system is broken and completely controlled by special interest and the wealthy elite. As long as we allow the 2 party system to maintain complete control, there will be no change regardless of candidate or the party in control. We must end the 2 party system monopoly to preserve what little there is left of our democracy. Always vote independent and organize letter campaigns and demonstrations for campaign contribution reform– The politicians like the present system way too much, so this is probably a giant waste of time. Millions of angry Americans in the streets with pitch forks will not be a waste of time, however.
[...] Well, the “master” has just elaborated his position and ‘raised’ the level of fairness ‘high’. No wonder the Mush-pardoned Sharifs and NRO Zardari find it so attractive a position: White House: Acquitted detainees may not be released [...]
[...] source: Raw Story [...]
[...] Boomslang in the White House is saying that detainees that are acquitted might not be released from the torture prisons. This goes on in the same time frame as Marines begin to go on duty for routine domestic duties. [...]
We are all detainees: some of us dress differently and drive around in cars and WORK but we are all being detained from a greater goal. As long as one of us is detained though, all of us are detained. At least we are not hiding.
[...] days of mindless acceptance are over. As has been stated by various underlings for months now, the White House has said that even if terror suspects from Gitmo are aqquited in the courts, they will not be [...]
VERONICAF WHERE ARE YOU???
AGAIN, NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUSH AND OBAMA..
AM I STILL WRONG??? IF A=B AND B=C, THEN A=C
OBAMA IS PRE-HITLER AND THE NAZI’S THAT WE SAVED FROM GERMANY HAVE TOTALLY INFILTRATED THIS GOVERNMENT.
VERONICAF, YOU ARE LIKE A NAZI SYMPATHIZER BECAUSE YOU MAKE EXCUSES UP FOR THIS GOVERNMENT…
[...] might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxRaw Story Mike Sheehan Wednesday, July 8, [...]
Bushbama is heading straight to the exit - I think he realizes that he can make more money in the private sector and by trying to please everyone a bit he can get speaking fees from both sides..
.Everyone needs to start voting independents into the lower levels of government to show the two parties in the two party system that we do have an option other than them….
Ron Paul was right…. again.
Acquitted but still kept? What a load of bullshit. How long before that way of thinking is applied to Americans for “crimes” other than being an Iraqi? These 2 good-nothing-political parties, the longer they’re in, the worse it gets for the nation. And they’ve been in for over 150 years!
[...] 7th July, 2009 The Raw Story [...]
The attitude of any organization, whether a Cub Scouts or G.M., come from the top.
Therefore, with this pronouncement, Johnson the federal attorney, and all of the W.H. administration, has proclaimed themselves to be outlaws and criminals, in dire need of investigation and held over for trials against humanity.
Period.
And be damned grateful if we don’t hang them before we try them.
[...] Boomslang in the White House is saying that detainees that are acquitted might not be released from the torture prisons. This goes on in the same time frame as Marines begin to go on duty for routine domestic duties. [...]
This is another dissappointing (and frankly, shocking) action by Obama. I have tried to stay positive by my “positiveness” is starting to run low. I can’t understand how Obama and his advisors can turn their back on their promises of “CHANGE” to the 54% who supported him and embrace the Bush police-state policies!?!
Guess I am ready now to take my Obama-Biden bumper sticker OFF my car!