But creating a whole new court (a "national security court") or some new process where torture-obtained evidence is now admissible is not the answer.

I don't see what choice he has. The answer can't be to try them in a regular US criminal court, not these defendants, not at this point. These investigations were never conceived to pass Constitutional muster in a US court and, the more I think about it and read other commenters' thoughts, entire cases against some really dangerous people are likely to get thrown out.

Allow me to explain: in a normal criminal case, investigators are on notice from the very start to observe Constitutional safeguards - the searches and seizures must meet 4th amendment requirements, ID procedures not unduly suggestive, defendants' statements not coerced, right to counsel granted - or valuable evidence will be suppressed by the court at the pre-trial evidentiary hearings. That's all fair enough.

But these cases seem to have been built from the beginning with the expectation that they would be tried in a non-Constitutional venue like a military tribunal. Was that right? I don't think so. I agree with you, there was no good reason these cases should not have been treated as regular US criminal cases.

But that's now what happened. The outgoing administration decided to treat these detainees as unlawful combatants to whom Constitutional protections did not apply, right or wrong, and that's the kind of cases we are now stuck with. To hand these cases over now to a US attorney, riddled with massive Constitutional abuses, will deny the People a fair trial.

Haven't we seen enough evidence over the past 8 years to know that opening those doors is certain to lead to far worse mischief?

Obama's proposal seems to be limited to just the cases remaining at Gitmo. To address the concern you raise, as soon as those cases are resolved, this "national security court" should be closed along with Guantanamo, and all future terrorism cases handled like any other US criminal case.

I trust you will forgive me for bringing this thread over to today's post, as it is still on-topic.

If we do what Obama wants, we'll be announcing the world that we're a country that believes that it's fine to use torture-obtained evidence whenever the tortured suspect is sufficiently (and allegedly) dangerous. Why would that reasoning be confined only to past cases and not future cases where detainees are tortured?

As you like to say, we should refrain from criticizing Obama for things he hasn't yet done, let alone for things he hasn't even proposed.

In the Obama quote you published he is explicitly speaking of the already-extant Guantanamo cases he is inheriting from the Bush administration, and the problems that already exist with those cases. In your comment, above, you accuse him of wanting to set up a procedure that will be used for new cases going forward. What can I say to that? Of course I don't think he should do that. Should he propose it. Which he hasn't. The reasoning should be confined only to those cases and not future ones because he's talking about the ones that the Bush people have already screwed up.

Glenn, you say there is no good reason why all these cases can't be immediately transferred to regular court for adjudication. Let ask you an "interest of justice" question:

If the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as it stands now, suffers from a Constitutional violation severe enough to warrant dismissal - in other words, that transferring his case to US district court would result in automatic dismissal and his freedom - do you think the interests of justice will have been served?

When massive intentional abuses occur, the detainees cannot be convicted in a proper court of law. That is a simple fact, and there is no other solution that is fair to the People.

So, just to be clear: what you are saying is that, if in the case of 9/11 mastermind KSM, if he cannot be convicted in regular court due to abuses that Bush officials committed, we should just let him go? And THAT is a fair solution for the people of this country? Is that what you're really saying?

"Free KSM"

I appreciate the courage of your convictions. I think you're quite possibly insane, and praise God that Obama did not appoint either of you Attorney General, but I admire your consistency.

Y'know, I used to snicker with the same derision as Glenn at the Joe Klein term "civil liberties extremist" but I'm beginning to believe such a things exists.

I'm more afraid of people like you, who are apparently willing to provide a "work-around" for this whole unfortunate enhanced interrogation business, than I am of KSM.

That's fine. I suppose then you're also more afraid of Barack Obama than KSM. I guess that's company I can stand to keep. (And, as Mona said yesterday, I am ANYthing but an Obamabot.)

By the way, are you aware that every day in this country, criminal convictions go up on appeal, and appellate review courts find that while Constitutional violations occured, the remaining evidence of guilt was compelling enough that the appeals courts decide to leave the convictions undisturbed?

Were you aware that THAT is the law of the land, that Consitutional defects are not an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card?

Do you fear those appellate justices as much as the guy facing three thousand counts of premeditated homicide?