5 ms·

I hope that the defenders of the legal theories that allow people to be held without trial for many years get their fair share of the blame. Gitmo itself is bad

I hope that the defenders of the legal theories that allow people to be held without trial for many years get their fair share of the blame. Gitmo itself is bad, but the legal theories that let almost anyone be held there without due process are worse. I understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups. But is looking bad in the media worth human dignity? There's a reason that US citizens have rights like due process (and you can see why everyone should get them, including Gitmo prisoners): If you can't prove it but refuse to let the defendant maintain the freedom that should be associated with presumption of innocence, you get incarceration of the type described in the original posting.

mattkopecki 14y ago
> But is looking bad in the media worth human dignity? Of course not. But, is you looking bad in the media worth someone else's human dignity? That's a much easier sell.
lbarrow 14y ago
I hope so, but it doesn't seem to be happening: after John Yoo finished his work at the Bush DoJ, he got a cushy position at Berkeley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo
- pacdavidson 14y ago
  Actually, as the wikipedia entry states, he has been on Berkeley's faculty since 1993. His return to Berkeley after being seconded to Bush's DoJ was met with heated resistance and continual protest (e.g. waterboarding enactments outside the law school). As a tenured professor, though, he couldn't be tossed out.
  - Joeri 14y ago
    I don't believe this argument of impotence. If they wanted to throw him out, they would have. Tenure is not written down in the constitution. These 'we want to but we can't' arguments bother me more and more as i grow older. It's usually a pretty transparent excuse for not doing the right thing, by scared old men or ambitious young men.
    - declan 14y ago
      I suspect you may not know the way tenure works, especially at a public institution.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      Tenure doesn't work this way. The whole idea about tenure is to give academics the freedom to pursue things that are controversial to the public - i.e., you can research controversial things without being tossed out by the angry mob. You can afford to go full-bore on your research rather than play politics and PR with the public. Tossing one tenured professor out is a simple thing. After all like you said, it's not written down in the constitution. The problem with removing tenure is that it destroys trust in the tenure system. If one professor is stripped of tenure for being controversial, then no one is safe. For this reason the only way to lose tenure is to do something illegal, since that's really the only line you can draw that doesn't move very much. Tenure is an all or nothing deal. The entire effect of protecting your faculty is completely nullified as soon as you violate your principle for one guy. The floodgates open and suddenly every prof that's doing something controversial becomes a target.
      - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
        Violating international law against torture is not "controversial", it's criminal.
        Djehngo 14y ago
        He will be classified as a criminal when and if the courts convict him as one. Until then what he did is irrelevant to his tenure due to the concerns raised by potatolicious.
        potatolicious 14y ago
        So charge him with a crime already and we can get on with this removing-tenure business. Except you can't - because he didn't violate international nor domestic law. He never waterboarded anyone, nor did he order the waterboarding of anyone. He worked on legal justifications for the use of torture, which is not an area of international law that's well defined. He didn't make policy nor law, he spun law so that it fit existing policy. I won't disagree that what he has done is despicable, but what exactly would you charge him with that would actually stick?
twoodfin 14y ago
I understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups. Just for the record, if you're a victim of one of these released prisoners, it would be more serious for you than simply bad press.
- femto 14y ago
  If that is something that needs to be taken into account, we should all be locked up, just in case we do something wrong in the future. If a prisoner has done something wrong charge and try him, otherwise he is innocent and should be released. If we dismantle that principle, we are in far greater danger from our own than from any external force.
- tripzilch 14y ago
  How can you judge? "On the record", even!! Isn't one of the major problems that it's unknown whether these people are even guilty of anything or not? No trial, remember? So how can you suddenly know and decide "for the record" what any one of these prisoners will do if they get out? Is the man in the article lying then? He says he's innocent. Of course he would. But who are you to decide one or the other?
rayiner 14y ago
What do you mean "almost everyone?" The only people in Guantanamo are foreigners. The Supreme Court struck down the other "theories" in a series of cases starting with Hamdi v. Rumsfeld: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld.
- erre 14y ago
  Well, Wikipedia estimates the world population at ~7 billion people, and the US population at 315 million. So, "almost everyone" in the world is not an American citizen.

mattkopecki 14y ago

> But is looking bad in the media worth human dignity? Of course not. But, is you looking bad in the media worth someone else's human dignity? That's a much easier sell.

lbarrow 14y ago

I hope so, but it doesn't seem to be happening: after John Yoo finished his work at the Bush DoJ, he got a cushy position at Berkeley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

pacdavidson 14y ago
Actually, as the wikipedia entry states, he has been on Berkeley's faculty since 1993. His return to Berkeley after being seconded to Bush's DoJ was met with heated resistance and continual protest (e.g. waterboarding enactments outside the law school). As a tenured professor, though, he couldn't be tossed out.
- Joeri 14y ago
  I don't believe this argument of impotence. If they wanted to throw him out, they would have. Tenure is not written down in the constitution. These 'we want to but we can't' arguments bother me more and more as i grow older. It's usually a pretty transparent excuse for not doing the right thing, by scared old men or ambitious young men.
  - declan 14y ago
    I suspect you may not know the way tenure works, especially at a public institution.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    Tenure doesn't work this way. The whole idea about tenure is to give academics the freedom to pursue things that are controversial to the public - i.e., you can research controversial things without being tossed out by the angry mob. You can afford to go full-bore on your research rather than play politics and PR with the public. Tossing one tenured professor out is a simple thing. After all like you said, it's not written down in the constitution. The problem with removing tenure is that it destroys trust in the tenure system. If one professor is stripped of tenure for being controversial, then no one is safe. For this reason the only way to lose tenure is to do something illegal, since that's really the only line you can draw that doesn't move very much. Tenure is an all or nothing deal. The entire effect of protecting your faculty is completely nullified as soon as you violate your principle for one guy. The floodgates open and suddenly every prof that's doing something controversial becomes a target.
    - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
      Violating international law against torture is not "controversial", it's criminal.
      - Djehngo 14y ago
        He will be classified as a criminal when and if the courts convict him as one. Until then what he did is irrelevant to his tenure due to the concerns raised by potatolicious.
      - potatolicious 14y ago
        So charge him with a crime already and we can get on with this removing-tenure business. Except you can't - because he didn't violate international nor domestic law. He never waterboarded anyone, nor did he order the waterboarding of anyone. He worked on legal justifications for the use of torture, which is not an area of international law that's well defined. He didn't make policy nor law, he spun law so that it fit existing policy. I won't disagree that what he has done is despicable, but what exactly would you charge him with that would actually stick?

twoodfin 14y ago

I understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups. Just for the record, if you're a victim of one of these released prisoners, it would be more serious for you than simply bad press.

femto 14y ago
If that is something that needs to be taken into account, we should all be locked up, just in case we do something wrong in the future. If a prisoner has done something wrong charge and try him, otherwise he is innocent and should be released. If we dismantle that principle, we are in far greater danger from our own than from any external force.
tripzilch 14y ago
How can you judge? "On the record", even!! Isn't one of the major problems that it's unknown whether these people are even guilty of anything or not? No trial, remember? So how can you suddenly know and decide "for the record" what any one of these prisoners will do if they get out? Is the man in the article lying then? He says he's innocent. Of course he would. But who are you to decide one or the other?

rayiner 14y ago

What do you mean "almost everyone?" The only people in Guantanamo are foreigners. The Supreme Court struck down the other "theories" in a series of cases starting with Hamdi v. Rumsfeld: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld.

erre 14y ago
Well, Wikipedia estimates the world population at ~7 billion people, and the US population at 315 million. So, "almost everyone" in the world is not an American citizen.