[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
You lost me here. It doesn’t require the president to do anything. All it would take would a rogue agent or two and inattention on the part of those above him. Do you think the overlords at Gitmo ever say “Hey, now. Why is prisoner #418 here, anyway?” Once you’re in and out of the reach of anyone that cares about you, there are no guarantees that you’ll ever see a judge. It wouldn’t take millions of dollars or a vast conspiracy- just a squalid cell in Gitmo and the barest amount of food along with a small number of government agents.
[/QUOTE]
The Olbermann quote you posted referred to the shadowy, evidently evil organization called “them.” I interposed the President, since I thought it was obvious that he was talking about his administration. Who would you prefer that I put as the actor in my argument?
Gitmo isn’t run by a half dozen soldiers. There are seven detention camps within Camp Delta (at Gitmo). They are guarded, maintained, and run by hundreds (if not thousands) of soldiers. Those soldiers rotate in and out of Gitmo regularly, so however many soldiers are there now is just a small portion of the soldiers that have and will work there. Those soldiers are overseen by dozens (if not hundreds) of people in the civilian and military branches. If you’re a prisoner at Gitmo, I assure you that more than a few people are aware of you.
Plus, the “them” would have to find some way to get you to Gitmo. So someone would have to kidnap you from your home in the US. And they’d have to transport you covertly down to Gitmo (again, if anyone knew they’d kidnapped you, they’d likely report it to someone who would sue in Court, and that would blow up the whole conspiracy theory we’re working on). And then they’d have to convince the military to allow you into Gitmo, despite the fact that you obviously haven’t arrived by the ordinary, military channels.
And then they’d have to convince the military personnel to keep you there, despite the fact that you clearly weren’t captured in a foreign country, you’re an American citizen, and when they question you, you obviously don’t know anything about anything. And Gitmo has been releasing people for some time now, so they would have to come up with some convincing reason for why they can’t release you.
And they’d have to come up with some way to keep the military from trying you while you’re down in Gitmo. So they’d presumably have to come up with some reason why you’re name should never get selected for trial, and why the law doesn’t apply to you.
And, of course, someone would have to be willing to do all these things to you for no apparent reason. And all of these people would have to be willing and able to do these things in such a way that no one else ever finds out about them. No one reports these things up the chain of command, or to a civilian oversight committee, and the military manages to keep you safely harbored away from the Red Cross’s periodic visits.
And yes, I do think the military personnel at Gitmo ask why certain prisoners are there. It’s the job of certain military personnel to know that the prisoners are there, who they are, why they’re there, how long they’ve been there, etc. And it will presumably be someone’s job to make sure that each prisoner gets a trial.
But even if we accept that all of the above is possible – and it is possible, although it doesn’t cross the line by much – then the big question is how you would change the laws to protect against these things happening? How would you write the law differently so that it protects against the law being violated?