Last week we congratulated the Obama Administration for choosing the security of the American people over the bumper sticker slogans of the far left. Today, the New York Times details the Obama Administration’s continued prudence on some key national security issues:
During her confirmation hearing last week, Elena Kagan, the nominee for solicitor general, said that someone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law — indefinite detention without a trial — even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than in a physical battle zone.
Ms. Kagan’s support for an elastic interpretation of the “battlefield” amplified remarks that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. made at his own confirmation hearing. And it dovetailed with a core Bush position. Civil liberties groups argue that people captured away from combat zones should go to prison only after trials.
Moreover, the nominee for C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, opened a loophole in Mr. Obama’s interrogation restrictions. At his hearing, Mr. Panetta said that if the approved techniques were “not sufficient” to get a detainee to divulge details he was suspected of knowing about an imminent attack, he would ask for “additional authority.”
But Mr. Panetta also said the C.I.A. might continue its “extraordinary rendition” program, under which agents seize terrorism suspects and take them to other countries without extradition proceedings, in a more sweeping form than anticipated.
…
Mr. Panetta said the agency is likely to continue to transfer detainees to third countries and would rely on diplomatic assurances of good treatment — the same safeguard the Bush administration used, and that critics say is ineffective.
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Mr. Obama’s Justice Department last week told an appeals court that the Bush administration was right to invoke “state secrets” to shut down a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees who say a Boeing subsidiary helped fly them to places where they were tortured.
The outlook on intelligence gathering has also been positive:
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the sequence of “disappointing” recent events had heightened concerns that Mr. Obama might end up carrying forward “some of the most problematic policies of the Bush presidency.”
Mr. Obama has clashed with civil libertarians before. Last July, he voted to authorize eavesdropping on some phone calls and e-mail messages without a warrant.
We sincerely hope the Obama Administration continues this prudent course.
If the ACLU is unhappy, someone must be doing something right…
Oh well…..Shrugg
Ya got that right,Mr Gait!!!!
Thank God there has been a "tiny" bit of sanity in this new Hussien Obama Aministration.
I love it when the ACLU is unhappy! It means that Freedom is working!
And just between us, if any of these detainees would be tortured or killed by sending them back to their home Counties, I'm all for it!
I agree that all that we need to not only try these people but those guilty of murders need to be executed speedily.It is only Just and Right and the common sence thing to do.As well as keep them away from our Citizens.Remember,there is a God in Heaven who will hold everyone to account someday at his Judgement. Can we do anything less?
Yes President Obama this is the right thing to do.These people all need to be tried and executed on a verdict of guilty if they are.It is sin insanity to do any less.
You people are all fucked up. Get a brain.
Elena Kagan, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
We, the people, would like to have Elena Kagan, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Elena Kagan, our country is calling for U.S. Supreme Court Justice
No aliens should be permitted to enter the U. S. from countries that have shown hostile actions towards the U.S. this includes all countries including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, none… No illegal aliens should be allowed to defy or ignore our laws, our forefathers came here legally to Ellis Island, they did not tunnel in and swim in, ignore our tax structure etc. Detainees are war criminals, and should be treated as such, if you have seen the brutal executions of David Pearl on U tube, it might give Americans a better insight on what these people do to our prisoners. Start posting the numbers killed as we did in Vietnam, killed number up in afganastan, secure our borders all of them with U. S. soldiers, National guardsman, and use the law in Arizona as a model for the U.
S. If the liberal states on the East Coast are against it, bus all the Illegal Mexicans to their cities and see how they respond.
Sanity? Heritage Foundation? I think not. You definitely sound anti-American though not wanting people informed of their rights
All I want to know is this: Is this man or a woman? I can hardly tell.