February 26, 2009
Al-Marri Indictment Today [UPDATED]
[Update: According to sources familiar with the case, the Obama Justice Department indicted Marri this afternoon. The sealed indictment was handed up by a federal grand jury in Peoria, Illinois.]

The Obama Administration appears close to resolving the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the alleged Al Qaeda “sleeper agent” who is the only so-called “illegal enemy combatant” imprisoned inside the United States.

As I wrote in last week’s issue, Marri has been held for the past five years in indefinite executive detention in the U.S. Naval Consolidated brig in Charleston, South Carolina—despite having never stood trial or been convicted of any crime. But according to sources close to the case, a federal grand jury is meeting today in Peoria, Illinois, and may indict Marri on multiple terrorism charges, including providing material support for terrorism. Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department on national-security issues, declined to comment, as did Marri’s lawyers.

An indictment would signal a major shift in legal policy from the Bush years. It would also fulfill President Obama’s campaign pledge to restore traditional American legal practices by treating terror suspects as common criminals, rather than stripping them of standard legal rights and classifying them neither as criminal defendants nor prisoners of war.

Obama has been forced to grapple with the Marri case because the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a challenge contesting the legality of his prolonged and indefinite detention. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case this spring, requiring the Obama Administration to file papers stating its position by March 23rd. The federal grand jury in Peoria meets only once a month, so today is likely the last chance to indict Marri before the Supreme Court’s deadline. An indictment would transfer Marri from military detention into the criminal-justice system, perhaps rendering the Supreme Court case moot.

Human-rights groups and civil-liberties lawyers are watching the situation closely, as an indicator of whether the Obama Adminstration will support the Bush Administration’s aggressive claims to executive detention powers in the war on terror.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration has lost its argument that the state secrets privilege is a good enough reason to stop a lawsuit over the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has rejected the Justice Department's request for an emergency stay. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, claimed that national security would be compromised if a lawsuit brought by the U.S. chapter of an Islamic charity was allowed to proceed.

The case was brought by the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a defunct charity with a chapter in Oregon.

The appeals court decision is a setback for the new Obama administration as it adopts some of the same positions on national security and secrecy as the Bush administration.

In the al-Haramain case, Obama has not only maintained the Bush administration approach, but the dispute has intensified, with the Justice Department warning that if the judge does not change his mind, authorities could spirit away the top-secret documents.

"Any way you look at it, it's pretty remarkable," said Jon B. Eisenberg, an attorney for al-Haramain. "This is an executive branch threat to exercise control over a judicial branch function."

"'Repent, Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.

Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department's chief lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision that officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat.

The whole "torture only produces bad info" thing has irked me for a while now. It's become somewhat folklore that it never works, but I'm wondering what the factual basis is. I won't doubt that there aren't studies out there done, but I do question their validity.

Yeah... "fun times." What the fuck is wrong with you?

About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective."

In June, Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked by ABC News' Jake Tapper whether accused Terrorists who were given a trial and were acquitted would be released as a result of the acquittal, but Gibbs -- amazingly -- refused to make that commitment. But this is the first time an Obama official has affirmatively stated that they have the "post-acquittal detention" power (and, to my knowledge, the Bush administration never claimed the power to detain someone even if they were acquitted).

Whatever else is true, even talking about imprisoning people based on accusations of which they have been exonerated is a truly grotesque perversion of everything that our justice system and Constitution are supposed to guarantee. That's one of those propositions that ought to be too self-evident to need stating.

Several related points: Spencer also notes that Johnson testified yesterday about the possibility that Guantanamo might remain open beyond January, 2010 -- the date Obama, to much fanfare, established as the deadline for closing that prison. That decision is one of the very few to which Obama defenders can cling in order to claim there are significant differences between his approach to these issues and the Bush/Cheney approach.

Meanwhile, former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed is engaged in what The Guardian calls "an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp detainee." The photographs -- which show Mohamed after he had been severely beaten and which he claims was posted on the door to his cage "because he had been beaten so badly that it was difficult for the guards to identify him" -- is scheduled to be destroyed by the U.S. Government, an act The Washington Independent's Alexandra Jaffe calls "another black mark on the Obama administration’s promised transparency."

Yeah... "fun times." What the fuck is wrong with you?

I see now. Color me excitable again.

On a slightly different note... MORE FROM GLENN GREENWALD:

"Well, one of the differences that strikes me between National Guard units and regular U.S. Army brigades, is that the National Guard is essentially trained to be a domestic force and to engage in these kind of emergency response functions"

Bolded for hilarity.

You didn't see the funny because you put your computer together wrong.