Posted on 07/01/2007 1:41:21 PM PDT by BGHater
A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution.
Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had "over-invested" in them.
His proposed "big brother" solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association's biennial conference, where David Hicks's lawyer, Major Michael Mori, is to be awarded honorary life membership.
"We have to fight terrorism with our strengths, and our strengths evolve around technology, including the technology of surveillance," said Justice Posner, a prolific legal scholar who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
"Are there terrorist plots that are at a formative stage among the large US Muslim community of two to three million people? In the 600,000 Canadian Muslim population, are there people planning attacks on the US?
"What we have to do is discover the extent of the terrorist threat to the US. There is a danger, and it demands a rethinking of some of our conventional views on the limits of national security measures.
"We should think of surveillance as preventative, not punitive. We should think of controls that have nothing to do with warrants or traditional criminal justice to prevent abuses."
Judge Posner said the US temper and culture could not sustain repeated terrorist attacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Posner for SCOTUS.
“We should think of surveillance as preventative, not punitive. We should think of controls that have nothing to do with warrants or traditional criminal justice to prevent abuses.”
A liberal judge with a working brain. I hope that Hillary keeps him in mind in case she needs a good Supreme Court nominee from the left.
Fat chance, she’d give us Janet Reno.
I think Posner has it right for once.
He is right. The Democrats are trying hard to help out the Islamists because of their mutual disdain for Western institutions, but the result of additional successful Islamic terror on U.S. soil will be a real backlash against Islam that dwarfs the imaginary backlash the libs have concocted.
While it might have stunned the Australians, Posner’s is in fact the liberal position, and also the Constitutional one. I’m not a fan of secret trials, but for almost six years the position of the Bush administration has been not to have trials at all.
What's to stop this from being turned against any group of interest, e.g. Christians? Public, fair trials, quick execution of the sentence, and return of any suspected terrorists to their home countries would work much better, in the short term. Of course, this assumes secure borders where ingress and egress are controlled.
The law of war is also incorporated in the Hague Convention, and all four of the Geneva Conventions. Have none of these judges ever heard of those? Or, is it merely the reporter who is dumb as hoe handle on the Law of War?
Congressman Billybob
Lets round them up and deport them all! They are a threat to our national security. Here we sit waiting while they hide in their mosques and plot to kill our family members and the government says they have freedom of religion. I say this is no religion its a cult and it’s time we do something about this! We have shown our strength when we defeated the immigration bill, let’s use this same strength for other issues that we want taken care of REMEMBER? WE THE PEOPLE!
Not holding trials keeps them around ~ holding trials brings "closure" but little else.
Execution on PPV
Another 9-11 republican, like Dennis Miller?
“the enemy army has invaded.”
These creeps could be shutting down our airports, spreading ebola or blowing up schools.
If this really is a war, why do we put them on trial when ever a terrorist is caught? Why do we feed them glazed chicken, give them prayer mats and permit anti American loons from producing collections of their poems?
Why not just put a bullet in their head immediately like any other enemy on the battle field?
Or do we have to wait until our cities are toast first?
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