Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan During Meeting with Human Rights Activists

[Better Believe It]

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
New York Times
May 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?”

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?_r=1&ref=us

[saigon68]

1. UN Real----

Welcome to 1984

[Better Believe It]

2. So could a future right-wing regime round-up opponents of future U.S. invasions just by calling them

terrorists?

We do not need yet another expansion of presidential power that will undermine our civil liberties and Constitutional rights.

Perhaps President Obama needs a refresher course in our Constitution.

[soryang]

3. This is about doing away with the judicial branch

Checks and balances? Who needs them?

[Better Believe It]

10. So the trend toward an imperial presidency continues with no let up

[vaberella]

4. Oh, this shit again...thanks for bringing it here. n/t

[ima_sinnic]

6. yes, it's annoying when your rose-colored glasses are constantly splattered with "shit," isn't it?

so "preventive detention" is okay with you, I take it?
indefinite holding of kidnapped people without charge or trial is okay?
was it okay when bushie did it too? in fact, he's probably eating his heart out that his schemes to render the Constitution irrelevant were not quite this bold. Look at the opportunity he missed! Pwned by Obama again!

[atreides1]

9. Unfortunately

There are too many here who refuse to take off the rose-colored glasses, and will never admit it.

[vaberella]

14. Check out the huffpost article then...and then compare---one with named sources versus this one...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8422625&mesg_id=8422625

I never realized so many people were willing to believe everything they read. Especially something with unnamed sources versus one that has named sources who were at the meeting.

[vaberella]

13. Did you read the bloody article?! I mean seriously...did you read it?!

There is nothing set up in fact in the article. It's all conjecture. You have two unnamed sources, when there is an article from huffingtonpost which actually names a member of the meeting (whom you can do a background check on) who talks about what happened at the meeting. You have quotes from people from a couple of months ago to years ago making comments on things going on today---Phil Graham? Give me a damn break. Lastly, you have conjecture and hypothetical statements being made with comments like "O is considering" :wtf: Does that make any damn sense to you?! Does any of that float water. I thought we were above the Repubs who jump down on everything being said because we like to collect the facts before we run mad with statements that have way too many holes in it. I'm not saying there is not some truth in the article...but I'd sooner take a huffingtonpost article, which has NAMED SOURCES before I jump on an article that has unnamed sources and a lot of commentary.

[Better Believe It]

16. Right. The story was all made up. Nothing to it. Thanks for the info.

Obama really wanted get the views of human rights activists on how he can as President expand human rights and civil liberties.

Next he'll be meeting with ACLU leaders for their input.

[vaberella]

17. Fine...then explain the Huffpost article.

Obviously you want to push your own beleifs and views. This is not the first time and to be expected from your post. And obviously you chose to ignore a source that has NAMED SOURCES for what you want to push. And that's fine. I had a thread that targeted both and I never claimed the other didn't have some truth, but I'm hard pressed to support an article with so many issues it faces. Further more, the huffpost articles tend to be more detailed and to have someone from the meeting giving their name and commenting says a lot...your post seems to want to push the same sort of reaction that another posters post of this article in the LBN section. So, I'm just calling BS to your entire post.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Are you aware that America learned of Watergate

from a source that was unnamed for decades after?

[phleshdef]

20. Are you aware that I don't give a shit because the article has tons of other holes in it.

[vaberella]

21. I am fully aware of that. However, once again...what would you say about the named source.

I think people are ready to believe one and totally discount the other article entirely. One that lists the named source and I made several statements, where my problem was not ONLY that the name was unsourced. The paper has more issues and I'd like more facts before I take it as canon. Further more, I'm surprised that no one here...who seems to believe so strongly in this article and defending it so strongly seems to take any consideration for the huffpost article and willing to dismiss it so easily.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. God the hyperbole!

This is the story o' the morning. We are reading various reporting on it. I'm not taking it as 'canon'. I'm not defending the article, and I'm not believing anything as yet. I've dismissed nothing.

I just asked you if you understand about the unnamed sources. To imply that honest and serious journalism never uses unnamed sources is just not correct, and so it is a point without much merit. And note, it is the only point I commented on. I asked a question. You have no way of knowing what I think about either article or both of them, as I have not said. I'm still reading up, making calls, finding out.
If people have valid points to make, they should make them clearly and without making piles of assumptions about others.
And this 'once again' bit. This is the first time we have exchanged questions on this thread. You did not previously ask me that question. So it is not 'once again' but 'for the first time' that you are asking. The tactic of 'once again' implies that I avoided your question on a previous occasion. That is not the case. Why would you use a cheap rhetorical tactic like that? Once again indeed.
Sorry I bothered to engage you as a thinking person, in what I thought might be the first exchange in an intersting thread. I asked you one question. You asked me one question one time. There was no again.
I will not bother again.

[Coyote_Bandit]

5. Sooooooo.......

He is essentially working to implement a plan where you can be incarcerated - perhaps indefinitely - not because you actually did something wrong but because somebody didn't like how you dressed or what you thought or where you were from.

I'm losing respect for this President by the day - and I neer had particularly high expectations for him.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. Two quick questions:

WHO exactly can't be tried in some kind of legal system and WHY can't they be tried? I can't think of ANY situation whatsoever that would prevent us or anybody else from being able to legally adjudicate somebody no matter what they are accused of. :shrug:

[ima_sinnic]

8. I guess it's those people that he "says so," for reasons that he doesn't have to give

--the "rule of law" is only for suckers, I guess, not something that a "CONstitutional scholar" would care about.

[agentS]

11. It seems a little odd to me.

Why wouldn't the government be able to charge someone with a crime if there was sufficient evidence to detain said person?
The judges on the bench would strike down any system that violates the Constitution. He's gotta know that. So the options left open to a future president are limited in terms of indefinite detention.

I wonder if he's gonna go after some righties....

[Better Believe It]

12. You have too much confidence in judges. The courts continue their move to the right

[ima_sinnic]

15. Bush is kicking himself he never thought of this as a way to get rid of dissenters

People kidnapped arrested at the RNC convention could have been whisked away and never seen or heard from again. These dictator powers are beyond bush's wildest imaginings. Just one more failure on bush's part, I guess. He didn't take it far enough to ensure his own unlimited powers.

[phleshdef]

18. This thread should be locked.. This article is full of garbage.

The article relies on unnamed sources, sais that Obama was against military commissions (no, he never was, he was against the Bush admin's lack of giving rights to the people being tried under them) and it claims that the public is catching on to the message that Obama is "weak" on national security (BS, the latest polls are showing that he is breaking that barrier that Democratic Presidents haven't broken in the past).

[vaberella]

22. It's pushing memes that have been disproved by video footage of O's own words.

Yet, people here are still taking it as truth. The article is like a cut & paste article.

[Better Believe It]

24. Will you be locking all posts you don't like or disagree with or just my posts?

[phleshdef]

25. Just yours.

[Better Believe It]

26. Is that why you are "stalking" me and do you intend to continue that?

[gkhouston]

27. Why does the NYT has the same smell it did in the run-up to Iraq? I'm whiffing

a coordinated campaign here...

[soryang]

28. Michael Isikoff reported on this WH meeting as well on MSNBC

He mentioned that Obama did discuss indefinite detention of detainees without trial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evCeWcRJxSg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eprogressiveindependent%2Ecom%2Fdc%2Fdcboard%2Ephp%3Faz%3Dshow%5Ftopic%26forum%3D103%26topic%5Fid%3D40475%26mesg%5Fid%3D40475&feature=player_embedded

[LynnTheDem]

29. ILLEGAL. IMMORAL. BULLSHIT.

CHARGE them and TRY them.

Or let them go.

There are NO OTHER (legal, moral) CHOICES.

And what I don't understand is the FACT that Pres. Obama KNOWS THIS.

[Better Believe It]

30. I think Obama is afraid to tell the truth and yet that is his most powerful weapon.

He could simply state that the great majority of people who have been held at Gitmo were not terrorists and yet were held for years without charges or any kind of fair hearing in violation of our Constitution and international law.

And he could clearly state that not all and in fact most of those who are currently being held at Gitmo were not terrorists.

He can quote Colin Powell's former chief of staff.

As long as the public believes that the hundreds people rounded up and thrown into Gitmo were suspected terrorists it will be difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to turn public opinion around on releasing them or imprisoning them in the United States.

Outside of a tiny minority, the Gitmo prisoners are not terrorists, they were just rounded up during military operations, sometimes turned over by people who were paid a bounty, $5,000, for fingering alleged "terrorists".

Hey, getting $5,000 for turning over someone you personally hated or had a grievance with was pretty good money in Afghanistan.