Raw Story | March 25, 2010
Daniel Tencer
News that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is negotiating with the White House on legislation to create a framework for handling terrorism detainees has some civil rights groups alarmed at the prospect of indefinite detention without trial being encoded into US law.
The Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut reported Wednesday that Graham, who sits on the Senate’s Armed Services, Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, “has submitted draft legislation to the White House in an effort to create a broad framework for handling terrorism suspects, mapping out proposals that appeal to the administration and others that do not.”
The legislation is reportedly an attempt to seal a deal between the White House and congressional Republicans on a way to move forward on the detention of terrorism detainees. The deal that would see Republicans support President Obama’s plan to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, in exchange for the president’s support of new terrorism detention laws.
Kornblut reported that some issues in the proposed legislation, “particularly rules governing the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, are more complicated and might not get resolved immediately.”
While that suggested some White House opposition to the idea, rights groups and bloggers went on the offensive, warning the Obama administration not to agree to any measures that would see some terrorism suspects denied access to courts, whether civilian or military.
Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent notes that Graham has recently voiced support for just such a legal mechanism.
"There has to be some type of statute — and he's been clear on that — for indefinite detention," Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said, as quoted by Ackerman. Some terrorism suspects are “too dangerous to release; but we also aren't going to try them in either a military or a civilian court. So there has to be a system for that, and that's why Senator Graham is looking for a legal framework.”
The idea of detention without trial is “un-American and violates our commitment to due process and the rule of law,” the ACLU said in a statement.
“Even during years immediately following 9/11, Congress never took the unprecedented step of passing an indefinite detention statute,” said Laura W. Murphy, head of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office. “Now that there is a president and Congress who have stated a commitment to the rule of law, it would be a terrible irony to have this kind of legislation seriously considered. We urge both the White House and Congress to reject any indefinite detention proposal."
Although details of the bill are vague, it doesn’t appear that Graham’s proposals will be as radical as those proposed recently by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ).
Under their proposal, anyone suspected of terrorist activities or supporting terrorism would by law have to be detained by the military and “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States.”
Full story HERE
