Balkinization  

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Cue the Outrage

Mark Tushnet

Apparently Osama bin Laden's son has been moved by US authorities from Jordan to New York, where he's been indicted as an ordinary criminal. OMG!!! The New York courthouse is going to be a magnet for terrorists! The cost of protecting the courthouse will bust the budget (particularly in light of the sequester)! Why on earth didn't the Obama administration do the sensible thing and take the guy to Guantanamo and try him before a military commission!! (Maybe because, as the law stands at the moment, it's unclear that he could be successfully prosecuted in a military commission. But who cares! If he can't, just lock him up and throw away the key!)

It seems to me bizarre that the law has been constructed so that it's not OK to move someone from Guantanamo to New York for a criminal prosecution, but that it's just fine to move someone from Jordan, or Turkey, or ... to do so.

This is the first of two terrorism-related posts I'll be doing. The next one will be even more annoying.

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