the outcome of the election

[Occhidiangela]

The one thing about your continuing argumentation that makes me question if we even speak the same language.

WHO the hell DECIDES if anyone is a member of Al Qaeda BEFORE you arrest, detain, question him, transport him to another continent, deny him sleep, dignity and a normal trial?

Guilty by suspicion it is?

Is it enough that someone, *anyone* points a finger at me and calls "Al Qaeda!" and everything you defenders of democracy and freedom once stood for is void?
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Not guilty by suspicions, arrested under probable cause. The major issue is the length of detention.

You don't pick someone up without probable cause or factaul evidence. Plenty of these folks were picked up in Afghanistan during the operations to Al Qaeda fighting operation.

What led to other arrests, particularly some that probably will result in eventual release in the near future, is info from those first prisoners, which leads to probable cause for picking up other parts of a terrorist network, a global enterprise.

Which brings us to the real concern, which is shared with many. When a considerable body of the evidence is classified due to the source involved, and it leads to the arrest, how does normal due process occur? I can't say that much of anyone has extensive experience with that puzzle, and I certainly don't.

How does classified due process occur?

You assume it does not occur. That is your point of departure.

I assume that certain simple fundamentals occur, such as "you don't pick people up without probable cause and common sense linkage." You'd have too damned many people in the pen if you did not use simple "police work" in the first place.

I wish I had a simple answer to you for the screwy situation that exists in re the classified nature of the info:

How soon is it considered perishable?

How quickly can it be declassified?

Which operatives in Afghanistan and elsewhere will die when it is? That is not to be discounted as a factor in the decision to expose sensitive information to a court, wherein it will be in the papers the next day.

To say that it is a procedural dilema is true.

I find your assumptions more hype than substance, but do understand why you feel there is grounds for concern: as noted above, any number of American jurists are asking similar questions.

Occhi