I agree that if Obama did this alone, it would be a slightly better system. But I'm having a hard time imagining that a limited executive order would prevent Lieberman/Graham/McCain from pushing for legislation of the kind that Wittes proposes, which allows for indefinite detention. I think it's most likely that both will be pushed - an executive order for current detainees and really bad legislation "that makes it easier for future Presidents to keep this country safe" (Obama, May 21).

You have a way with metaphors :-)

Here's another civil liberties weigh-in:

“Detention without charge is a regime we don’t want to see,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who led a study of options for closing Guantánamo. “Having an executive order rather than Congressional legislation is even worse. Then, it’s a continuation of the kind of super power within the executive branch that you saw with the Bush administration.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/politics/27detain.html

And from Mathew J. Franck at NRO (via Ari Melber on Twitter):

The (Inevitable) Assertion of Executive Power
[after mentioning the executive order and signing statement]...The world sure looks different after you take that oath of office, doesn't it? How easily campaign declarations of outrage are forgotten! I bet there's not a president since Truman who hasn't learned to loathe the Supreme Court's decision in the Steel Seizure Case.

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWYxMDkyNzgyMDI4MWFlODQ5ZTE1MzRjYzQ5NzEwYmY=

Last year, Congress directed intelligence agency Inspectors General to prepare an unclassified report on the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance program. That report has just been released. It traces the origins, implementation, and utilization of the Program, and discusses the legal questions surrounding its development. See Unclassified Report on the President’s Surveillance Program (pdf), Joint Inspector General Report, 10 July 2009.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/07/ig_surveillance_report.html

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/psp.pdf