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Comment by dzdt | Hacker News Reader

Who remembers in 2002 when an American citizen was arrested on American soil and transferred to a military prison, where he was held for three and a half years with no trial while the government claimed he had no rights or recourse because they had determined him to be a terrorist? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Padilla_(prisoner)

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Oh that's only one guy, there are many many more that have been held in Guantanamo without trial or chance at recourse. Quite a few innocent ones too.

Chelsea Manning was also arrested without charge for 18 months. And there have been reports of other "black sites" in the US, too, even ones managed by local police departments.

I remember he was working at Taco Bell.

I do! As I recall, he sort of was a terrorist though? Something about the planning or discussion of apartment house gasline bombings? They didn't even need an agent provocateur to produce evidence for this one.

On a semi-related note, I hope John Walker Lindh gets a hell of a party upon his release next May.

The idea behind due process is that everyone has a right to it, not just a select class of people your government is sympathetic with.

It's incredible how a simple idea like that seems so difficult to grasp for many people.

Just like free speach allows you to say horrible things.

> As I recall, he sort of was a terrorist though?

Does that matter a single iota? Does the US legal system say somewhere you can hold people in prison with no rights because "they sort of are a terrorist, though"?

The US constitution has always given the President powers as commander in chief, to detain enemy combatants as prisoners of war. It's not the same thing as criminal punishment, but the POW camps that have been set up in every war are constitutional.

I am less concerned with whether Padilla was actually a bad guy than whether the process was actually a bad process. If we allow a precedent that the government can remove someone's rights by saying the word "terrorist" then those rights are not worth much anymore.

Exactly, the word "terrorist" is just another example of linguistic gamesmanship. The Gubment doesn't get to recast accusations of murder as accusations of "terrorism" just so they can circumvent the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

So they held him from a fair trial despite having good evidence on which to win such a trial, and that somehow makes it better?

In my opinion, the "maybe a terrorist" angle 100% doesn't matter. If you are a citizen then you have the right to a fair trial, due process, etc.

If it was such a slam dunk, why not arrest and prosecute under existing laws? That the federal government felt they needed to take unconstitutional steps undermines their credibility in my eyes.

Exactly. And if these rights are a good thing (which as a nation we have theoretically decided they are), we should be giving them to non-citizens as well. I think it is always good for a) government having to prove guilt instead of the accused proving innocence and b) the severity of the supposed crime not being a determining factor in whether or not the accused gets a fair trial in a timely manner.

> he sort of was a terrorist though?

So what? Even terrorists have a right to a fair trial, and protection from arbitrary detention.

You miss the point. The point of a trial is maybe he wasn't a terrorist after all. Someone who is in fact guilty of certain crimes does in fact lose some of their protections, they can be detained.

Innocent people should be protected from arbitrary detention, therefore everyone should get a fair trial to determine if it can be proved they are guilty, while they have the ability to defend themselves. An innocent person who is wrongly accused of bombing a kindergarten is just as innocent as a person who is wrongly accused of stealing a candy bar.

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