Showing posts with label Guantanamo Review Task Force. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guantanamo Review Task Force. Show all posts

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Obama on indefinite detention: a Goldsmith blueprint?

The Obama Administration's National Security Strategy includes a statement of intent to develop a system of "prolonged detention" of "suspected violent extremists" who "cannot be prosecuted":
For detainees who cannot be prosecuted--but pose a danger to the American people--we must have clear, defensible, and lawful standards. We must have fair procedures and a through process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified. And keeping with our Constitutional system, it will be subject to checks and balances. The goal is an approach that can be sustained by future Administrations, with support from both political parties and all three branches of government (p. 36).
Three observations about this policy: 1) The report of Obama's Guantanamo Review Task Force, completed in January but just leaked to the Washington Post and published yesterday, elaborates in some detail why the Administration believes that 48 of the detainees at Guantanamo (and presumably many more at Bagram) cannot be prosecuted and cannot be released.  2)  Obama's basic intent on this front has been in place for more than a year -- he sketched out essentially the same policy in May 2009.   3) The system of "prolonged detention" he has in mind, only briefly elaborated in May 2009 and May 2010, seems to adhere to a more detailed proposed program laid out in February 2009 by Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Bush Administration's Office of Legal Counsel who withdrew the torture memos and resigned after just nine months.