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On the terror trail Anything GoesBy Rick Horowitz Just a couple of guys talking it over... "...so the judges wear their medals on their robes?" "You're missing the point. Anyway, it's not a court-martial, it's a special military tribunal. To deal with foreign terrorists." "No robes." "Forget about the robes. The idea is to deal with these guys faster than they could do it with ordinary trials." "The terrorists." "Exactly. Anybody the president thinks is a terrorist, they could try him in these special tribunals, with special rules." "And the president makes the rules?" "Rumsfeld makes the rules. The president says he has 'reason to believe' this guy is a terrorist, then Rumsfeld decides what the rules are. Like it wouldn't have to be a unanimous jury to find him guilty -- it could be two-thirds. And it wouldn't have to be 'beyond a reasonable doubt' -- it could be something less." "Because they're terrorists." "And because there's a war on. They wouldn't even have to try these guys in the United States -- they could try them wherever they caught them. And there wouldn't be any right to appeal to a higher court. And the rules of evidence would be different from a regular trial. They could use anything that shows someone is guilty: wiretaps, hearsay -- " "Whatever it takes." "Exactly." "And the press won't raise a stink?" "The press won't know. They'll be allowed to do the tribunals in secret, to keep classified information from getting out." "Don't they already do public trials with classified information? They still manage to protect the information." "That was before. This is different." "Because there's a war on." "And because they're terrorists. It's like Cheney says -- terrorists don't deserve the same constitutional safeguards that American citizens do." "Assuming they're terrorists." "They're terrorists -- that's why they're being tried in these tribunals." "And trying them in these tribunals makes it that much easier to convict them of being terrorists." "So what's your point? Lincoln had tribunals. So did Roosevelt." "Was that before or after he set up the internment camps?" "Stay focused here. When you're fighting to protect our liberties, you may have to -- " "Take some liberties?" "Bend a few rules. Don't you want to know what the ones we've already got in custody are saying to their lawyers? Don't you want the Justice Department to question anyone living here who might know something?" "Five thousand young guys. Five thousand young Middle Eastern guys." "Not because they're Middle Eastern -- because they entered the United States from certain dangerous countries. The Justice Department says it's the country the person entered from that matters, not his national origin. Anyway, the Justice Department says they're not all Middle Eastern." "Belgians. I'll bet they're questioning lots of Belgians coming here from Saudi Arabia." "You're missing the point..." Posted 11/15/01.
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Rick Horowitz
