There was a third option: In addition to the first two courses of action, we could detain people who had not actually committed any crime, but whom we thought might commit some terrorist act or harm the national security of America. These would be people we considered 'too dangerous' to release or even transfer to the custody of another country and who we could not charge and try in court due to lack of evidence or other related problems. ... This course of action -- preventive detention -- was, in fact, what we were doing under the Bush Administration! Would Obama continue such a policy, just more humanely and in accordance with domestic and international laws?
-- IntLawGrrl
Kristine A. Huskey, on p. 275 of her superb new book,
Justice at Guantánamo (2009), on which IntLawGrrl
Naomi Cahn recently posted
here, and about which I'll be posting a full
Read On! review very soon.
Kristine's question was aimed at the
Executive Order that President Barack Obama issued just days after his inauguration. Here at IntLawGrrls she'd
posted about that order at the time. As yesterday's
post by guest/alumna
Monica Hakimi, and
my own New York Times blog post this spring indicate, the question remains very much an open one half a year later.
