Potential Trump Pick for Homeland Security Wants to Send up to 1 Million People to Gitmo

[highplainsdem]

Source: Mother Jones

Donald Trump was scheduled to meet Monday with Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr., a Trump supporter and surrogate during the campaign who is now reportedly being considered to head the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke is known for his extreme views on policing—including his conviction that there is a war on cops but no police brutality—and for his attacks on Black Lives Matter. One of his most out-there positions: suspend the constitutional rights of up to a million people, and hold them indefinitely at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Clarke's extremist approach to homeland security is no secret. In his upcoming memoir, Cop Under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime and Politics for a Better America, he advocates treating American citizens suspected of terrorism as "enemy combatants," questioning them without an attorney, and holding them indefinitely, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Their cases would be handled by a military tribunal rather than a traditional court.

But a year ago, Clarke went further and called for rounding up Americans who sympathize with terrorists and shipping them to an offshore prison. During a December 2015 segment of his show, The People's Sheriff, on Glenn Beck's TheBlaze radio network, Clarke suggested that any person who posts pro-terrorist sentiments on social media be arrested, deprived of the constitutional protection against unlawful imprisonment (known as habeas corpus), and sent to Guantanamo Bay indefinitely. He estimated the number of people who could be imprisoned under his proposal could reach 1 million. Presumably, this would include American citizens. (The Democratic research group American Bridge caught Clarke proposing this idea.)

"I suggest that our commander in chief ought to utilize Article I, Section 9 and take all of these individuals that are suspected, these ones on the internet spewing jihadi rhetoric…to scoop them up, charge them with treason and, under habeas corpus, detain them indefinitely at Gitmo," Clarke said.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/sheriff-clarke-trump-terrorists-guantanamo-bay

[Initech]

1. Where's Jon Stewart when you need him?

[Renew Deal]

2. Hmmmm

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Today is Stewart's 54th birthday

(heard that on an ET radio report this afternoon )

[mn9driver]

3. Um, Gitmo isn't that big.

And I don't think Habeas Corpus means what this assclown apparently thinks it does.

[moosewhisperer]

4. Umm...yeah...

I'm gonna go ahead and assume this wouldn't apply to white terrorist militia groups and the confederate flag wavers that exhaust them.

[Historic NY]

5. He is a moron that part of the island isn't large enough.

the detention camps are only big enough for several hundred people.

The remainder is an active naval station and air base.

[ToxMarz]

6. Since reason is no use with these people, maybe we can

Respectfully ask "Where do they think the money for that will come from, trickle down from their tax cuts?"

[keithbvadu2]

8. "deprived of the constitutional protection" - the most dangerous part of the article.

He has plenty of fellow Trump supporters who would gladly do that to him for his skin color.

[yellowcanine]

9. "under habeas corpus detain them indefinitely at Gitmo"

Obviously Clarke doesn't know wtf he is talking about, "habeas corpus" literally means "produce the body" - the exact opposite of "detaining someone indefinitely" anywhere, let alone off shore.

[TygrBright]

10. They're gonna need a bigger Gitmo. n/t

[jmowreader]

11. And who gets to decide what is "pro-terrorist sentiments"?

Because "pro-terrorist sentiments" is like "pornography" - you know what it is when you see it - people could easily be sent to Gitmo for posting "I really cannot stand Donald Trump."

Worse, they probably WILL be.