Guantanamo inmates win right to see evidence

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

Guantanamo inmates win right to see evidence - Telegraph

A court in Washington has ordered the United States government to hand over nearly all the information it holds on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, marking a new blow to its controversial detention of alleged terror suspects. The government must now provide defence lawyers with classified evidence gathered against detainees The ruling by a federal appeals court paves the way for a fresh round of legal challenges to the detentions at the US naval base in Cuba. The government must now provide defence lawyers with classified evidence gathered against the detainees, making it easier to challenge their designation as "unlawful enemy combatants".

A hint of justice?

[rmnunez]

Yes indeed, access to evidence is fundamental to defend oneself of whatever charges. Admittedly the legal proceedings in this War on Terrorism have had some serious flaws, but it not quite as bad as protrayed and getting gradually better.

In the early days captives they were openly tortured, humiliated in public, confined in small cages. They obtained some sort of habeas corpus, limited access to counsel and were able to raise appeals. More access to evidence carries with it the right to challenge witnesses and sooner or later they'll be recognized with the basics like to know what they are charged with and an expectation of timely proceeding.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Arawn-ap-Hywel Guantanamo inmates win right to see evidence - Telegraph A hint of justice?

You can always find some court in Washington to do anything, but this is a Supreme Court issue, no matter how many lower courts rule.
Just had to work it's way up, unless the higher court already covered it.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: rmnunez Yes indeed, access to evidence is fundamental to defend oneself of whatever charges. Admittedly the legal proceedings in this War on Terrorism have had some serious flaws, but it not quite as bad as protrayed and getting gradually better. In the early days captives they were openly tortured, humiliated in public, confined in small cages. They obtained some sort of habeas corpus, limited access to counsel and were able to raise appeals. More access to evidence carries with it the right to challenge witnesses and sooner or later they'll be recognized with the basics like to know what they are charged with and an expectation of timely proceeding.

I think they were mostly isolated and tied up since they were trying to kill American soldiers with great enthusiasm.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I think they were mostly isolated and tied up since they were trying to kill American soldiers with great enthusiasm.

Aren't trials supposed to decide that? Or are you saying our government is so utterly flawless that every single inmate there is guilty and doesn't require a trial?

[rmnunez]

I'd expect you wouldn't need a trial to determine if someone was trying to kill you, you'd notice right away. What you need the trial for is to legally prevent him from doing so.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Scribbler1 Aren't trials supposed to decide that? Or are you saying our government is so utterly flawless that every single inmate there is guilty and doesn't require a trial?

You don't handle wars like a civilian police action.

A group of troops go into an area where fire has come from against them. The troops capture the bad guys and send them to prison reporting the circumstances. They do not take pictures of the situation and confiscate the evidence of what was used against them for court. The troops either use those weapons themselves or blow them up.
Troops are not the police.

Sure libs pick lib courts to get liberal rulings, but they have to go up to the Supreme Court where they let the military carry out their missions.

I can't immagine winning WW2 if the civil courts had to be used for various prisoners instead of military courts. America would be at far greater risk under those circumstances IMO.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica You don't handle wars like a civilian police action. A group of troops go into an area where fire has come from against them. The troops capture the bad guys and send them to prison reporting the circumstances. They do not take pictures of the situation and confiscate the evidence of what was used against them for court. The troops either use those weapons themselves or blow them up. Troops are not the police.

These people they capture are not uniformed soldiers and some are just grabbed on the streets. In a situation like that you need to be even MORE careful you have the right people.
And capturing the "bad guys" isn't that easy when they all look alike. Again, are you saying we NEVER make mistakes in this regard?

Sure libs pick lib courts to get liberal rulings, but they have to go up to the Supreme Court where they let the military carry out their missions. I can't immagine winning WW2 if the civil courts had to be used for various prisoners instead of military courts. America would be at far greater risk under those circumstances IMO.

This has nothing to do with "the libs" or World War II or any such thing. This might be called a war, but it is different from any other, even Vietnam. We are NOT fighting a uniformed army.
Besides, the purpose was to PROTECT those people, wasn't it? We should be extremely careful we don't nab a bunch of uninvolved civilians just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That doesn't win many hearts and minds.

So, in this case it would seem we NEED some kind of mechanism to prevent such errors, and if not to prevent them then to FIX them as quickly as possible.

[sdbest]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I think they were mostly isolated and tied up since they were trying to kill American soldiers with great enthusiasm.

Who were trying to kill them.

Regards
S.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Scribbler1 These people they capture are not uniformed soldiers and some are just grabbed on the streets. In a situation like that you need to be even MORE careful you have the right people. And capturing the "bad guys" isn't that easy when they all look alike. Again, are you saying we NEVER make mistakes in this regard? This has nothing to do with "the libs" or World War II or any such thing. This might be called a war, but it is different from any other, even Vietnam. We are NOT fighting a uniformed army. Besides, the purpose was to PROTECT those people, wasn't it? We should be extremely careful we don't nab a bunch of uninvolved civilians just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That doesn't win many hearts and minds. So, in this case it would seem we NEED some kind of mechanism to prevent such errors, and if not to prevent them then to FIX them as quickly as possible.

Terrorist do not wear uniforms and often hide behind women, children, hospitals and schools.
Terrorist are not legitimate government armies and legally have no rights like a captured Army person would.
We are nice though and still treat them well, despite their beheadings.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Terrorist do not wear uniforms and often hide behind women, children, hospitals and schools. Terrorist are not legitimate government armies and legally have no rights like a captured Army person would.

And I'm all for that. No disagreement there. BUT, I'm talking about making damned sure the people we grab as terrorists ARE terrorists.
If we cannot guarantee that, we must have a system in place to make sure all the people we imprison belong there.

It seems to me this whole issue started because it was shown many of the people in prison are NOT terrorists. Essentially, we screwed up.
This big stink wouldn't have existed otherwise.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Scribbler1 And I'm all for that. No disagreement there. BUT, I'm talking about making damned sure the people we grab as terrorists ARE terrorists. If we cannot guarantee that, we must have a system in place to make sure all the people we imprison belong there. It seems to me this whole issue started because it was shown many of the people in prison are NOT terrorists. Essentially, we screwed up. This big stink wouldn't have existed otherwise.

We go to an area where shooting is coming from, we have often drones telling us what is happening and for the most part they know and take all the bad guys in.
Due to madrases where everyone is brainwashed early, it is not inconceivable to find 6 year olds with bombs around their waist who are told by their parents to go ask a group of American soldiers for candy as their parents blow their own child up.

It's tough, it's no fun and nobody really wants this.
It is what it is and we must deal with it.

Army finds people with hot weapons on them, you assume if they are not with you they were the bad guys shooting at you.
What more can you do?
There is no perfect war.

In WW2, our best generation of soldiers had among them 50 soldiers who were convicted for rape in war time. You Will find some glitches here and there, but for the most part I think the military gets it right.

We sure take care of the bad guys better than they take care of others.

[sdbest]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Army finds people with hot weapons on them, you assume if they are not with you they were the bad guys shooting at you.

If the army finds people with hot weapons who were shooting at them, they weren't terrorists. Terrorists are not found on the battlefield, by definition.

Regards
S.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica We go to an area where shooting is coming from, we have often drones telling us what is happening and for the most part they know and take all the bad guys in.

"For the most part" is precisely the problem and that's why courts are getting involved.
One more time, WE screwed up and grabbed a lot of people who were essentially bystanders. Otherwise we wouldn't even be talking about this.

Due to madrases where everyone is brainwashed early, it is not inconceivable to find 6 year olds with bombs around their waist who are told by their parents to go ask a group of American soldiers for candy as their parents blow their own child up.

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the point of using courts to determine who belongs in prison or not.

It's tough, it's no fun and nobody really wants this. It is what it is and we must deal with it. Army finds people with hot weapons on them, you assume if they are not with you they were the bad guys shooting at you. What more can you do? There is no perfect war.

Evidently we ARE dealing with it, which is what you are objecting to.
And as regards "What more can you do?", if we had no way to deal with the situation we started we should have waited until we DID have a way to deal with it.

In WW2, our best generation of soldiers had among them 50 soldiers who were convicted for rape in war time. You Will find some glitches here and there, but for the most part I think the military gets it right. We sure take care of the bad guys better than they take care of others.

Irrelevant to the point of this thread, and apparently you aren't reading what I'm saying.

[rmnunez]

Apparently there are really just two ways to deal with terrorism; militarily (the prefered US method) and by means of law enforcement (favoured by Canada and Western EU).

Are EUers and Canadians doing better? There have been no dramatic terrorist attacks in Canada, yet. Canada does have a large immigrant Muslim community which shares many of the features suspects caught in the EU have. Are law enforcement in the EU sharing the relevant information quickly and easily enough? Immigration is a feature and shared by the overwhelming majority of identified terrorists, all are traveled, transplanted, in an alien environment. But there were terrorist attacks post 911 in the EU, wouldn't this suggest US law enforcement is doing better than some of their western EU counterparts.

These people they capture are not uniformed soldiers and some are just grabbed on the streets. In a situation like that you need to be even MORE careful you have the right people.

The military is definitely not as adept at the formalities in criminal procedure, as the police have been trained to be. That reference to evidence gathering is very helpful, it provides a bit of context to how things really went down (though in hundreds of other cases there may have been greedy bounty-hunters and vindictive in-laws turning in innocent bystanders). Military intelligence is a rather simple process, everyone is handled like a "suspect", nobody is in uniform, all of them do look alike and even their names sound very similar.

it would seem we NEED some kind of mechanism to prevent such errors, and if not to prevent them then to FIX them as quickly as possible.

With the Guantanamo immates the shared features of the captives (aside from their religion) is that they were allegedly caught on the battlefield and were not of that country nor in any recognized armed force. These features would be suspicious, a wounded Egyptian or Yemenite with a machine gun captured after mopping up would be subject to aditional scrutiny. Last I heard over 50 different nationalities were shared by immates in Guantanamo.

In Afghanistan (where lots of Guantanamo immates were caught) there were Al Qaeda training camps, they stored weapons, coordinated communications. Camps were attacked and prisoners taken, terrorists or aspiring ones in training did actually engage US armed forces. But there was that bounty business and the Pakistanis turned in hordes, from which notorious cases abuse of process, malicious prosecution and wrongful arrest have arisen. So we see the shortcomings of an excessively militaristic approach, but they did destroy those bases, OBL went into hiding, lots of highly likely terrorists were killed and plenty captured. But many of them have been questioned in a manner unacceptable from the police.

No case could be successfully brought against any of them in a conventional criminal procedure, the evidence would be dismissed, the coerced confession is worthless. There have been cases of successful leads to further arrests from 'fingering' terrorists who yield under questioning and 'rat' on their co-conspirators -cases against those 'ratted on' (regardless of the quality of any other evidence against them) would have to be dismissed as well (fruit of the poisonous tree).

There are all sorts of jurisdictional problems relating to the documentation and custody of evidence conditioning its admissibility. Most of the countries from which suspects hail do not have legal institutions susceptible to recognition by any US Federal Court and this precludes application of the "full faith and credit" to judicial determinations emanating from many of them -which in turn could preclude admissibility of evidence.

In addition to all of this, the crime charged in these cases involves an international criminal conspiracy and conspiracies are notoriously difficult to prove -even for proper law enforcement with all the evidence in their jurisdiction and an apprehensive, but talkative suspect in custody.

So the Bush administration figured the legal was a mess, but they could hold the suspects extraterritorially while they worked out those details. They should have thought this out better? Should they have anticipated jihadees would be caught alive? How risky is it to have suspected members of an international criminal conspiracy in custody in any jail within the US? Is there some risk an airliner would crash into the prison to silence the potential source?

We've never seen anything like this before, how is a conventional armed force supposed to deal with criminal suspects? Should they have had a battery of JAG officers programming prosecutions -as though the suspects were members of an armed force? If the suspected crime is of local jurisdiction the normal procedure is to turn any suspects in to local law enforcement for his prosecution, but in an international terrorist criminal conspiracy this would be ill advised. In Afghanistan it is estimated up to 40 thousand Pakistanis captured in suspected terrorist camps died suffocated in containers abandoned by the local warlords in the desert -so maybe the local law enforcement couldn't be counted on and you can see how that "full faith and credit" bit goes out the window.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: sdbest Who were trying to kill them. Regards S.

If the Army wanted to just kill them, they could just blow the whole building up every time instead of risking their lives by going in to capture people.
Much easier to rocket a building and go home alive than it is to capture people at the risk of their life.

You have to admire and appreciate the task of the coalition troops.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: sdbest If the army finds people with hot weapons who were shooting at them, they weren't terrorists. Terrorists are not found on the battlefield, by definition. Regards S.

Terrorist are like cancers and can pop up anywhere.

The cities are not by definition battlefields, but if they hide and fire weapons in cities, they are still acting out their terror.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Scribbler1 "For the most part" is precisely the problem and that's why courts are getting involved. One more time, WE screwed up and grabbed a lot of people who were essentially bystanders. Otherwise we wouldn't even be talking about this. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the point of using courts to determine who belongs in prison or not. Evidently we ARE dealing with it, which is what you are objecting to. And as regards "What more can you do?", if we had no way to deal with the situation we started we should have waited until we DID have a way to deal with it. Irrelevant to the point of this thread, and apparently you aren't reading what I'm saying.

Courts on the lower levels are getting involved because people like the leftists at the ACLU cherry pick the liberal judges who have no problem trying to get involved in policing wars. It's dangerous and foolish, but that won't stop them.

The ones who went to the base near Cuba were considered big threats meanwhile others held in Iraq were various levels of threats.
If we were not involved in those processes with those prisoners, I'm sure Iraqi leaders would have instantly killed them instantlty, which I guess would have made this no issue.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Courts on the lower levels are getting involved because people like the leftists at the ACLU cherry pick the liberal judges who have no problem trying to get involved in policing wars. It's dangerous and foolish, but that won't stop them.

Interesting. Do you have anything showing how these judges are either leftists or cherry picked by the ACLU?

The ones who went to the base near Cuba were considered big threats meanwhile others held in Iraq were various levels of threats. If we were not involved in those processes with those prisoners, I'm sure Iraqi leaders would have instantly killed them instantlty, which I guess would have made this no issue.

That has nothing to do with the question or the topic of this thread.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Terrorist do not wear uniforms and often hide behind women, children, hospitals and schools. Terrorist are not legitimate government armies and legally have no rights like a captured Army person would. We are nice though and still treat them well, despite their beheadings.

GBA so you agree with internment?