"What Will it Be, Mr. President?" ACLU Asks Obama

Tell President Obama that YOU support federal jury trials for ALL detainees at https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=...

Or, use the White House contact information at http://whitehouse.gov/contact

In this video, I discuss the full page ad in last Sunday's New York Times from the American Civil Liberties Union, including a series of images in which President Obama morphs into President Bush, and asks President Obama on the issue of federal criminal jury trials for the alleged conspirators behind September 11th:

"What Will it Be, Mr. President? Change or More of the Same?"

You can find the the image of the ACLU's ad in last Sunday's New York Times that I used in this video at http://www.aclu.org/aclu-ad-what-will-it-be-mr-president

And, you can find the Washington post article titled "Obama advisers set to recommend military tribunals for alleged 9/11 plotters" that I show in this video at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR20100304052...

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[8DX]

@puellanivis Well they are being indefinitely held. Without trial, court or jury. So then you agree that some solution needs to be found.. they need to be tried or released and provisions must be made so that this situation does not recurr in the future.

[puellanivis]

@8DX I think if you'll look through my comments, I never stated that I thought they should be held indefinitely... in fact, I say, we either need try them as simple criminals if they are not privy to the rights afforded by the Geneva Convention, or they should be tried by military tribunal if they are. The only other option is as Prisoners of War, which are allowed to be held so long as war is active simply by fact of being uniformed regular army personnel. But they don't fit the later's prereqs

[8DX]

@puellanivis Just to reply to an old comment: The US has signed and ratified the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights", which in Article 9: "obliges parties to allow those deprived of their liberty to challenge their imprisonment through the courts". It is irrelevant whether these are people are to be classified as soldiers or criminals, from a standpoint of general human rights, everyone has the right to a trial a right not to be arbitrarily and indefinitely confined.

[msterliz]

@Zyworski All valid points in A,B and C, but not in the scope of this discussion, which I thought was about whether he should be granted a civilian jury trial. My point is that the nature of this trial is within the military arena and that the things discussed in the trial will touch on sensitive intel. I would prefer that intel stay out of the public light. I am no statist and believe in transparency, but there are some things I don't think we should know - at least not at this juncture.

[Zyworski]

@msterliz A: We didn't capture him the Pakistani ISI did. B: We didn't have a clue as to what we had until incriminating evidence was found on a hard drive in his posession, he was just brought in on a routine round-up. C: Our method of extracting information was to keep him naked for months, while interogated by female handlers, and to waterboard him 183 times. Our methods are now well knows and definitely not rocket science.

The bottom line is that we used torture to extract a confession.

[msterliz]

@Zyworski I can see why a non citizen who gets arrested for a crime would get a trial - that seems fair to me - but this is something totally different, which is why I cited KSM as an example. The information in a military trial is not open to the public in contrast to a civilian trial. That means that our methods of capture, surveillance etc. would be made public. Do you think it is wise, given the nature of the war we are in, to divulge this information to the public?

[Zyworski]

@msterliz Nice job of defining who a citizen is, but it in no way negates the protections of the first 10 Amend's. Duncan v Louisiana; By a 7-2 majority the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Duncan, arguing that the right to a jury trial was fundamental and central to the American conception of justice. As such the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment requires states to honor requests for jury trials. The Supreme Court ruled that the right to a jury trial was fundamental.

[msterliz]

@Zyworski Here is the text. Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;

I think the first sentence makes it clear who this amendment covers. Was KSM "born or naturalized in the United States"???

[Zyworski]

@msterliz I did read it and didn't ahve to get any further than section one before I ran into this, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" Unless you can come up with a different interpretation of, "any person" I would venture to say that the 14th amentment embraces foreigners/any person. If it was all as cut and dried as you believe Bush and or Obama would have had him swinging from a rope a long time ago.

[msterliz]

@Zyworski Since we live in a post 14th amendment era, let's take it from there. If you read the amendment, it it explicit in granting its rights to "citizens" - not "people." I could elaborate on why KSM should not be tried in the US as civilian, but will keep it in the scope of your 14th amendment argument, which is flawed.