Writing for the L.A. Times, Andrew Napolitano argues that military tribunals for suspected terrorists are unconstitutional. Tellingly, and perhaps because we did not know at the time precisely who had planned the 9/11 attacks, Congress did not declare war. But the use of the word “war” persisted nonetheless. Even after he learned what countries had [...]

In my initial posting on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial, I asserted that “there’s an incredibly good chance that Mohammed and his comrades will go free.  The fact that KSM was repeatedly waterboarded would seem to taint any subsequent evidence, including his own confession.” This was based on the presumption that the whole point of [...]

I was out of pocket for a few days visiting the folks in Alabama and missed commenting on a few stories.  Most notable among these was Friday’s announcement that five Guantanamo Bay detainees, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be tried in New York. This one’s a real head scratcher, in that I see [...]

Rusty Shackleford: Bush-Hitler: Holding terrorists indefinitely without charge in Gitmo. Hope-Change: Holding terrorists indefinitely without charge somewhere else. As Jacob Sullum notes in much more thorough post, it’s a natural consequence of the Obama administration’s continuing the Bush perspective that we’re at war with terrorists. In Holder’s view, then, we are engaged in a war [...]

President Obama’s first significant act as chief executive was to order a halt to the military tribunals at Gitmo. Oddly, it merits only page 2 treatment at WaPo. In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval [...]

Salim Hamdan, the former driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden convicted by a U.S. military tribunal Wednesday, could be released from prison before President Bush leaves office. The U.S. military jury sentenced the Yemeni prisoner Thursday to just 5 1/2 years in prison, including five years and a month already served at Guantanamo Bay. [...]