Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (37708)	4/3/2004 8:35:15 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793731

washingtonpost.com > Opinion > Editorials Duty to Legislate Saturday, April 3, 2004; Page A22 WE HAVE COMPLAINED before of Congress's passivity in balancing American liberty and security in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Particularly on such questions as how military detainees -- domestically and abroad -- ought to be handled, the law provides no easy answers. Many of the questions the nation faces are essentially legislative in character. Yet instead of crafting new laws that both authorize appropriate detentions and put limits upon the executive branch's powers, the national legislature has preferred to sit on its hands and foist political responsibility for these decisions onto the Bush administration and the courts. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has been an honorable exception. Last year, he introduced a thoughtful bill dealing with citizens held as enemy combatants that would permit the military to hold such people but require reasonable process, judicial review and access to counsel. The bill has yet to receive a hearing. This year, however, Mr. Schiff got the House Judiciary Committee to include in a Justice Department authorization bill a requirement for an annual report on enemy combatants. The report would have to specify "the number of persons or residents so detained" and "the standards . . . for recommending or determining that a person should be tried as a criminal defendant or should be designated as an enemy combatant." The full House recently passed the bill containing Mr. Schiff's provision. As a practical matter, even if the provision becomes law, it probably won't gouge much new information from the government. The military is holding two citizens and one illegal immigrant as enemy combatants domestically. And in a recent speech White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales sketched out the government's standards. The government considers someone eligible for enemy combatant designation when he "has become a member or associated himself with hostile enemy forces," Mr. Gonzales said, citing a 1942 Supreme Court case. Once the government has determined that someone is eligible, he said, "numerous factors" are considered in deciding whether to prosecute the detainee or hand him over to the military. These include "the assessment of the individual's threat potential and value as a possible intelligence source" and whether national security issues would hinder a prosecution. Final decisions are made based on the "totality of the circumstances" -- which is to say that there is no clear principle or standard, just convenience. Mr. Schiff concedes that the government "may come back with a one-paragraph report" that isn't terribly informative. But he sees the bill as an important first step in getting Congress to take its oversight role in the war on terrorism more seriously -- as he put it, "a toehold to demand some level of reporting." That's a positive development for which he deserves credit. If, however, more members of the House took their duty to legislate in this critical area seriously, Congress would craft a bill that actually imposed standards rather than simply inquired what they were. But Mr. Schiff's measure is a start. © 2004 The Washington Post Company