We shouldn’t be afraid to try people for treason in scenarios like this. Lindh was convicted on a host of weapons and conspiracy and other charges.
Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass."
Barack Obama, May, 2009. But then, of course, he was talking about Bush's policies toward terrorism.