As much of the right pounces on the Obama administration decision to try 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators in a civilian court in New York, a trio of conservatives is saying the US courts and US prisons is precisely the right place for terrorists.

The three -- David Keene of the American Conservative Union, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Bob Barr, a former member of Congress form Georgia – argue that it’s important to close the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and shift trials and detentions to the US justice system as envisioned by the Constitution. (They signed the statement as individuals, not as representatives of their groups.)

They also note that the system already holds hundreds of terrorists without threat to surrounding communities. And, they said, it would save money.

Their statement:

“As it moves to close Guantanamo and develop policies for handling terrorism suspects going forward, the government should rely upon our established, traditional system of justice. This includes our system of federal prisons, which have repeatedly proven they can safely hold persons convicted of terrorism offenses. We are confident that the government can preserve national security without resorting to sweeping and radical departures from an American constitutional tradition that has served us effectively for over two centuries.

“Civilian federal courts are the proper forum for terrorism cases. Civilian prisons are the safe, cost effective and appropriate venue to hold persons convicted in federal courts. Over the last two decades, federal courts constituted under Article III of the U.S. Constitution have proven capable of trying a wide array of terrorism cases, without sacrificing either national security or fair trial standards.

“Likewise the federal prison system has proven itself fully capable of safely holding literally hundreds of convicted terrorists with no threat or danger to the surrounding community. That system includes the "supermax" facility in Florence, Colorado, arguably the most secure prison in the world, as well as other truly "maximum security" and state of the art facilities. In addition, state facilities, including those at Thomson, Illinois and elsewhere around the country, can be used with any appropriate security upgrades our law enforcement professionals deem necessary. 

“This makes good sense for the taxpayers who have invested millions of dollars in these facilities and who are seeing millions wasted every month at the costly, inefficient Guantanamo facility.  It makes sense for the community, which will benefit from the related employment and has absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities. The scaremongering about these issues should stop.

“But most of all it makes sense for America because it is a critical link in the process of closing Guantanamo and getting this country back to using its tried and true, constitutionally sound institutions.”

For more, www.constitutionproject.org

Florida Democrat Rep. Alcee L. Hastings is introducing resolutions thanking Bermuda and Portugal for resettling released detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Bermuda accepted four Chinese Uighers and Portugal took in two Syrian men, all of whom had been cleared for release by the Obama administration.

"While Congress and the administration debate about what to do with the remaining detainees, and where to resettle those who have been cleared for release, we should express our appreciation to those nations who have aided us in accepting released former prisoners," Hastings said. "We owe the people of Bermuda and Portugal sincere thanks for taking on the responsibility of ensuring the rights and well-being of these released detainees, who have been cleared of any wrongdoing."

Howard Kurtz reveals in the Washington Post today that the paper delayed by a day its publication of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's Afghanistan assessment, at Obama administration behest. But for followers of the Post's financial fortunes, what may be most interesting is what Kurtz reveals about Woodward's current relationship with the newspaper: Woodward is now a contract writer, with a monthly retainer of $100. That's right, just 2 zeros.

Posting for  David Goldstein: 


    Guantanamo was one of the issues du jour on the Sunday talkfests today.

A story that will appear in Saturday's Washington Post says that President Barack Obama is drafting an executive order that would renew the authority claimed by his predecessor to hold suspected terrorists in indefinite detention.

Here's an excerpt from the story, by Dafna Lizner of ProPublica and Peter Finn of the Washington Post:

"Such an order would embrace claims by former President George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House officials are growing increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may prove impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president's January 2010 deadline." 

ProPublica is a nonprofit independent news organization that was created in 2007 to pursue investigative journalism as major newspapers cut back on such efforts amid falling readership and revenue. It's led by Paul Steiger, a former managing editor at the Wall Street Journal.

Could President Barack Obama soon issue an executive order barring release of the controversial detainee photos?

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., strongly suggested that could be coming, though the White House would not discuss its conversations with him.

At his weekly news conference, Hoyer said, “I think the President has made his position pretty clear in terms of those photos.”

In the Senate, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham has said that unless Obama signals he’ll issue that order, or the Senate doesn’t’ vote for a ban, he’ll block as much Senate business as he can.

“I think that we will have to see specifically what the executive order says, assuming there is going to be an executive order on those,” Hoyer said. “But the administration hasn't changed its position. It made it very clear that they believe the release of these pictures is not appropriate.”

One question, he said, involved freedom of information laws. ““I think the Congress made it very clear, certainly over here,” Hoyer said. Congress does not include a ban in its emergency war spending legislation.

“We don't think that FOIA ought to be simply struck in this instance. If the President makes an exception to FOIA, that is one thing, but precluding FOIA in this instance was not acceptable to the House,” Hoyer said.

So, a reporter asked, “The White House told you that they plan to do that soon?”

“I think,”: he said, “I have reason to believe that they are looking to that as an option so that they can resolve this issue.”

Ban the release of terrorist detainee abuse photos, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday, or he'll try to bring the Senate to a halt.

The South Carolina Republican, a leader in the effort to impose a ban, was angry that the emergency war spending bill Congress will consider next week has no such restriction. The Senate unanimously  voted last month for a ban, but objections by some House of Representatives Democrats got it lifted from the final compromise legislation.

President Barack Obama said in a letter he will do all he can to keep the photos secret, but Graham, in a conference call with reporters, said he wanted more.

He wants a Senate vote on a ban, and he wants Obama to assure him that if necessary he'll issue an executive order stopping the release. No word yet from Senate leaders or the White House on whether they'll buy those terms. Graham wants those conditions met in the next few weeks; the war spending bill is expected to be approved next week.

Graham is looking beyond that legislation. If his terms are not met, he said, "Nobody gets appointed to anything. No business goes forward in the Senate."

Congressional negotiators agreed last night not to ban the release of photos of terrorist detainees, after President Barack Obama wrote a five-paragraph letter promising to fight to prevent disclosure.

Many House Democrats wanted the right to release the photos. Senate Republicans and Democrats had voted unanimously to keep them secret.

In his letter, Obama wrote the appropriations commttee chairmen that while he opposed a legislative ban, he could “assure you that I will continue to take every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure the DoD (Defense Department) detainee photographs are not released.

“Should a legislative solution prove necessary,” he wrote, “I am committed to working with the Congress to enact legislation that achieves the objectives we share.”

He said, though, he would oppose a legislative ban at the moment so that the bill could move through Congress. Passage of the ban, he said, “would unnecessarily complicate the essential objective of supporting the troops and would accomplish no substantive purpose.” Read the letter.

Another controversy was also resolved with a compromise: for four months, Congress is unlikely to block Obama from ordering detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp into the United States for trial.

By then, Congress hopes Obama will come up with a plan for closing the detention facility.

The crux of the bill is $79.9 billion for the Pentagon to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another $10.4 billion would go to the State Department and other “international affairs and stabilization” efforts in Pakistan.

And $7.7 billion would go to helping ease the flu pandemic, while another $1 billion would be used for the “cash for clunkers” program that will allow consumers to trade in old gas guzzling vehicles for more fuel efficient ones.

As in Mother England. Thursday morning, Bermuda's premier, Ewart Brown, made the surprising announcement that four Uighur detainees from the American prison camp at Guantanamo had been resettled in the tourist mecca in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The problem, reports Bermuda's only newspaper, the Royal Gazette, is that Brown forgot to tell the island's governor, the royally appointed official who is London's authority on the island. Bermuda isn't really an independent state, but a self-governoring overseas territory of the United Kingdom. And while Bermudans are at pains to point out that they approve their own laws and UK laws don't apply, the UK is supposed to decide Bermuda's foreign policy.

Which is why the island's governor, Sir Richard Gozney, thinks he should have been told before Bermuda agreed to take in the Uighurs, who'd been ordered freed last year by a U.S. district court judge and had grown tired of Guantanamo.

"The Government of Bermuda should have consulted with us because it carries with it foreign policy ground areas and security issues," Gozney is quoted as saying in the Gazette.

Brown disagrees, telling CNN Thursday afternoon that the matter is strictly an immigration one, which falls within local Bermuda officials' authority. He called the decision a "humanitarian one."

Brown acknowledged that he let Gozney know what was going on "rather late" -- apparently after the four Uighurs were already aboard a chartered flight from Guantanamo.

Why exactly wasn't clear. Brown told the Gazette the Uighur asylum had been in the works for a month.

As for the Obama administration, it expressed gratitude for the Bermudan hospitality and didn't address the issue of whether maybe some kind of headsup was owed to London.

And the Uighurs, who've been in Guantanamo for seven years? Their mental health appears fine, reports the Gazette, and they could barely contain their enthusiasm for moving to Bermuda during the flight from Guantanamo.

Still awaited is word that the 13 remaining Guantanamo Uighurs have made it to the Pacific island of Palau, which announced Wednesday it was taking all 17.

Apparently, no headsup for Palau, either.

The New York Times, whose reporting on detainee recidivism rates, merited an Editor's Note skinback (here's Planet Washington's summary) two weeks late, is once again being accused of carrying Bush administration water on detainee policy -- in a leaky bucket.

The latest offense, says Glenn Greenwald, writing at Salon, is the Times's assertion that, whatever the ongoing controversy, all the Justice Department lawyers agreed the harsh interrogation techniques were legal. Greenwald asserts that the Times again is guilty at least of sloppy reporting. He notes that if you read the e-mails on which the Times piece is built, it's clear that 1) not everyone agreed with the conclusions that were about to be set forth in one of the Stephen Bradbury memos approving of harsh interrogation and 2) that in any case, all the pressure to do so was coming from the White House.

I'll let you decide for yourself if you agree with Greenwald's conclusions. The debate, if nothing else, seems to provide one more reason for the Obama administration to get on board the calls in Congress for an independent investigation of what took place.

Meanwhile, Seton Hall has released a fairly thorough debunking of the detainee recidivism report that came out of the Pentagon and led to the Editor's Note above. You can read it here.