Sorry for the OT, but this is rich:

WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually

I didn’t realize that military justice was so fair. This will be interesting!

Because it means the defense may give us a glimpse into whatever the heck has been going on with some of those intercepts that NSA and CIA claim are keeping us safe from terrorists. You know, when he deposes those witnesses?

How much, if any, of this information will be readily available to the press? Can a press blackout be ordered, transcripts sealed, etc?

the UCMJ does provide the defendant with significant legal rights not available in the civilian legal system.

F. Lee Bailey, who began his career as a military lawyer, wrote in one of his memoirs that he thought the military court system was fairer, at least when there weren’t politics involved.

so, I made the point downstairs, in new york a former student held a principle hostage

I have no idea what religion that student was but if he were a muslim you could bet your house they would be promoting that on every single news outlet in the land

IIRC, we’re still using Blackwater as a military contractor, right? Under a different name– I think it’s now called “Ze”.

Oh Blackwater, keep on rollin’…

Thanks so much for this, Cynthia. In my diary yesterday, I called for a civilian trial for Hasan under the mistaken assumption that he would have more rights there than under UCMJ. The differences you highlight here are indeed significant.

However, this bit:

forbids it for good cause

sounds highly likely to me, provided that there is a route for DOJ to file a brief with the judge requesting that depositions on the topic of the NSA/CIA data-gathering process are out of bounds. Is there a route for something akin to a “friend of the court” filing? How likely do you think it would be for the government to step in on national security grounds, as they have on every other case I know of where methods were in danger of being exposed?

Why would a JAG even bring in evidence outside of the shooting a Fort Hood? To me it’s extraneous and would add nothing to the prosecution case (INAL)

huh, we’ve got a better chance of building a snowman in hell then he or his lawyers do of deposing anyone from NSA/CIA. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

One memory I have from my ROTC days is that at least at the time, ANY officer could be drafted to serve as a “prosecutor” or “defense attorney” regardless of whether they were actually lawyers. The defendant could hire a civilian attorney at their own expense of course.

Obviously with a case like this, there is no way amateurs would be handling anything. But wanted to point out one of the holes in the UCMJ and the justice system.

I don’t think it would be a good idea to bring up mitigating circumstances outside the shooting because it’s already out that Hassan was becoming anti american. He mowed down the very people he took an oath to help while he allowed american taxpayers to foot the bill for his education.

Because it means the defense may give us a glimpse into whatever the heck has been going on with some of those intercepts that NSA and CIA claim are keeping us safe from terrorists.

I doubt it. I firmly believe that we were–and probably still are–spying on innocent people without warrants. But “a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings” would qualify for a wiretapping warrant under just about any standard.

They spy on us on a regular basis but brush it off when someone is communicating with radicals. Doesn’t make sense to me and it has now cost the lives of our troops. Punish the ones who didn’t pay attention as well.

This passage really stood out to me:

Counterterrorism and military officials said Monday night that the communications, first intercepted last December as part of an unrelated investigation, were consistent with a research project the psychiatrist was then conducting at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington on post-traumatic stress disorder.

I still don’t have a good handle on this story. This guy was either: (a) a rapid believer in a virulent strain of Islam who wanted to wreck havoc on our military, or (b) a man who happened to be raised Muslim who ultimately had a complete breakdown. The early chatter seemed to suggest it was (a), but I’m not really seeing much to support that. This is looking more and more to me like someone who just had a psychotic break. He was stressed about going overseas, and this was exacerbated by the fact that he was being taunted for being Muslim and by the fact that, as a Muslim, he wasn’t really interested in fighting in an ongoing open-ended conflict with Muslims.

All the more reason, I would think (but I’m no legal expert), that the government/military will want to strike a deal with Major Hasan. As FrankProbst notes in #14, it seems likely, as details of the case leak out, that Hasan suffered a psychotic break of some sort. Of course, it’s likely he wasn’t too put well together prior to that, and in fact, that’s the kind of info that is leaking out. Those looking for — as the slimeball Leiberman put it — “the worst terror attack since 9/11″, will be sorely disappointed.

The shootings were truly tragic, and I cannot imagine the grief of the survivors. I think I can forego whatever his trial might bring in the way of knowledge re NSA/CIA intercepts. If that information does come out, so be it, and it will be interesting. I think this terrible irrational crime, connected in some way with the stresses and strains of the military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan (the guy had been trying to get out of the military for some time…. what kind of sleeper terrorist would do that?!), offers little of comfort to anyone who comes close to it. Such is the price of human weakness and frailty.

If there are those in the government who would wish to make this into some terrorist show trial, then they will be sewing discord, assuming as seems very likely there is no terrorist connection. And the latter seems to be the conclusion, if Cynthia and the New York Times are correct. But I can’t imagine there will be much of a trial, if any trial. I predict a plea agreement (as no one apparently doubts Hasan did the shootings), and then if the government really cares about those who suffered at Ft. Hood, the victims who lived and the relatives and friends of those who died can mourn and ultimately try and go on with their lives.

I have spent 30 years in military court rooms trying court-martials or appeals of a court-martial conviction.
The likelihood of depositions is low. Depositions are rare in court-martials. This case is going to take so long to put together and try that any witnesses deploying overseas will deploy and be back in time to testify live.
However, discovery is in fact much much broader than civilian discovery. Prosecutors who play games with discovery routinely are chastised by judges for gamesmanship.
Under Military Rule of Evidence 505, the court can be closed if there is an issue about the discussion and release of classified information. This is similar to civilian practice under the Classified Information Procedures Act. That part of the trial (and I’ve participated in such trials) will be closed to everyone except the accused, judge, court-reporter, Members (jury), the lawyers, and a Court Security Officer — all of whom must have the proper level of security clearance and access. The record will be sealed. The media ain’t getting that stuff if it exists.
True, the Article 32, UCMJ, pretrial investigation is substantially better and fairer than civilian practice: representation, cross-examination, discovery, and the right to call your own witnesses. It is likely that testimony will be taken by phone or VTC. Some have incorrectly called a 32 the equivalent of a grand jury.
If the charges are referred capital he cannot plead guilty and he cannot be tried by judge alone. So any negotiation would have to require a non-capital referral along with the deal — likely a Life Without Parole.

…any party may take oral or written depositions unless the military judge or court-martial without a military judge hearing the case or, if the case is not being heard, an attorney competent to convene a court-martial for the trial of those charges forbids it for good cause…

Lord knows IANAL, but to me it seems that “for good cause” may be a tent big enough to shove any number of camels into. I certainly hope that we’ll get good, thorough discovery but I’ll remain the skeptic until I see it happen.

Xe, prounounced “Zee.”

I need to make some corrections to your description of the Military Justice system. I am a newly retired Marine who served as a Paralegal for all but 2 of those years. During that time I directly participated in upwards of 700 Courts Martial and indirectly (there are several different stages in the life of a Court Martial) participated in 500 + more. All of that time was either with prosecution or in post-trial review.

First off there is no such thing as a “Court of Military Justice” or a “JAG Case.” There are three types of courts in the military. The Courts-Martial (which is what will happen here), the Military Commission (currently on hold but likely to restart in Guantanamo) and a Court of Inquiry (more of an investigatory tool than anything else). You don’t have to be licensed specifically for practice in front of a Court-Martial per se but you do need to be licensed to practice in one of the states or D.C. You then have to be accepted by your client of course and the judge will admit you to practice in front of that particular court martial.

The military system is different in that at the trial level, we don’t have standing courts like in the civilian system. The various Federal District Courts throughout the country are examples of standing courts. In the military each court martial is convened (read created) only to hear a particular case. There are four standing courts at the appeals court level. The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, the Army and Air Force each have their own criminal appeals courts and then the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF). Though not technically a military court The Supreme Court of the US would be the next step in the appeals chain after CAAF.

You stated

cases brought under the UCMJ provide a much higher level of discovery rights to the defendant than do civilian criminal cases

In a court-martial the defendant (accused in court-martial parlance) is given open file discovery unless there is classified information involved and even then, if the government wants to use it affirmatively or if it is helpful to the accused then the accused gets to see the evidence.

The process that we will undoubtedly see play out over the coming months (I doubt this will take more than a year and it is very likely that it will be 6 months or less) is as follows.

An investigation by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) is currently ongoing with the assistance of the FBI from what I’ve read in the news. Once that investigation is completed, that information will be forwarded to the Commanding General that is in charge of Major Hasan. In this case I believe that General is the commander of Fort Hood. The General will have a couple options. He can return the investigation report to CID if he needs more info, not likely, or he can forward the report to the Staff Judge Advocate to have charges drafted up (preferred) against Major Hasan. The preferral of charges means only that the person signing the charge sheet has reason to believe that Maj Hasan committed the offense. In this case the charge will most likely start out with 13 counts of murder (potentially 14 as I understand that one of the dead was pregnant).

Because this will be a General Court-Martial (as opposed to a Summary or Special Court-Martial) the preferred charges then must go to what is called an Article 32 Investigation (this is most analgous to a grand jury) where you are correct the accused and his lawyer(s) are allowed to be present and question witnesses. Unlike a grand jury where you have many people hearing the facts and they, as a group decide whether to indict, there is only one person that serves as the investigating officer (sometimes called an Article 32 officer – at least in the Marine Corps). This person does not have to be but usually is a lawyer. In this case because the accused is a Major, the Article 32 officer will most likely be a Colonel which means that he or she will have had upwards of 25 years of experience in the military.

At the end of the Article 32 investigation the Article 32 officer makes a report to the convening authority (that is the General who will convene the court martial) recommending, or not, to send the case to trial. Unlike in the civilian system, the accused can waive his right to an Article 32 investigation. I won’t hazard a guess as to whether that will happen here.

Assuming the case gets sent to trial, the accused has a couple rights here that he wouldn’t have in civilian court. He has the right to go to trial in front of the judge only (unless the government is pursuing the death penalty which is very likely here) or in front of a jury of his peers which will all be officers who are at least the same rank as him or higher. Like any jury these officers will decide Major Hasan’s fate.

One of Major Hasan’s rights as a member of the military that civilians don’t receive is the right to have attorney assigned to represent him at no cost to him. These attorney(s) will be military lawyers (JAG’s) who serve as defense attorneys in all of the other courts martial that take place in that particular area. Because this is such a high profile case, there will be an entire team assigned to defend him. Additionally, Major Hasan can hire a civilian attorney at his own expense.

As for your last point. You said,

Why is this significant to you, dear readers? Because it means the defense may give us a glimpse into whatever the heck has been going on with some of those intercepts that NSA and CIA claim are keeping us safe from terrorists. You know, when he deposes those witnesses?

Don’t get your hopes up. The government won’t use that information if it exists and if there are intercepts of Hasan talking to or otherwise communicating with known extremists they will hardly be helpful to Major Hasan’s defense now would they. The defense attorneys may get to see/hear them just to determine if they are helpful but they, not even the civilian attorneys will be able to talk about it.

I meant to say that I retired after 20 years in the Marine Corps and during 18 of those years I served as a paralegal. During the other 2 years I served as a Drill Instructor.

Unless there is very strong evidence that Major Hasan had some sort of mental issue where he didn’t understand the gravity of the offense that he was committing or that he didn’t know it was wrong then the government will pursue the death penalty. Here is where another difference between military and civilian court comes in. In civilian court you can plead guilty in a capital case. In the military you cannot. If there is a plea agreement then that will preclude the government from pursuing the death penalty.

But “a cleric in Yemen” would qualify for a wiretapping warrant.
Don’t waste words.

Whatever you may think about the lack of a jury as civilians may understand them, the UCMJ does provide the defendant with significant legal rights not available in the civilian legal system.

Which, I guess, is all we need to know to explain why just about every Member of Congress publicly behaves as though there is no pre-existing court-martial-based military justice system available to try the Muslim non-POW “combatants” alleged to be war criminals who are being held in American military custody. So that the only option to trying them in civilian courts is claimed to be the erratic and ad hoc Military Commissions, which remain under Constitutional challenge. Members of Congress who damn well know better, including such patrons of the military in Congress as the Marine Corps’ Senator Jim Webb, who has obviously heard of courts-martial…

mljucmj and jcinva, I think it’d be very valuable to have your input here about the pros and cons and advisability of trying the suspected 9/11 perpetrators (or others at Guantanamo) in UCMJ-compliant courts-martial – as opposed to in either a Military Commission under the new 2009 law (with its CIPA-like classified information provisions) or in federal criminal court.

[FYI, I've excerpted at length from former and acting Guantanamo Military Commission defense counsel JAGs in earlier diaries here, here and here.]

A couple of points from your pair of comments that I don’t understand.

In @19, you say “One of Major Hasan’s rights as a member of the military that civilians don’t receive is the right to have attorney assigned to represent him at no cost to him.” In civilian courts, if you can not afford an attorney, you have the right to have one assigned at no cost (otherwise, you still have the right to have one assigned if you wish, but the judge will fix a cost).

In @21, you say, “In civilian court you can plead guilty in a capital case. In the military you cannot.” In all of the several states I’ve lived in, it is also not allowed to plead guilty in a capital case.

(In Illinois, it is illegal to use the subjunctive in a capital sentence, as well — just a bit of trivia.)

jcinva, was trying to say that Major Hasan will have military appointed counsel regardless of ability to pay and indigency.

Because this is an Army case it is possible that a military judge will be assigned as the Article 32, IO. The Army has been doing that in high profile cases. He will also be senior to Major Hasan. This is not required by either statute or regulation; however, there are plenty of appellate cases that suggest that it is not a good idea to have an IO junior to the accused.

Powwow, my views are well known within the military justice community of lawyers that the Commissions are a flawed approach and that courts-martials are the preferred approach.

Cheers, from court-martial.com

Like any court proceeding, the judge can order things sealed and could , under certain circumstances even close the courtroom, but such things have to meet pre-existing criteria. It’s not done lightly.

Also, the more people who know about a thing, the less likely it is to remain a secret.

I think it will depend on what the defense strategy is. I have no clue if the defense is going to go with some form of Psych defense, ie, that the guy snapped or what.
Also, I have no clue if the defendant is going to chose to participate in the investiagtions stage and attempt to presnet evidenc e then.

I don’t know what WILL come out, I mearly point out tat there are avenues for exploration availbale inthe JAG system that are different than inthe civilian criminal justice system.

No promises, just a heads up to be on the lookout

I was wondering if the researvh project was on the psychological stresses of asking Muslims to fight other muslims?

This is just a total WAG, but it would explain why comunicating with a cleric who exhorts American Muslims that fighting other muslims overseas is a sin, would seem logical.

There is no Court of Military Justice?

Gee, that’s what it says on the admissions certificate they gave me when I got sworn in.

Per http://www4.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmerman/disp.aspx?z=2056

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces hears appeals from the military courts (”courts martial”) of the army, navy, air force and coast guard. The Court was originally created in 1951 as the “United States Court of Military Justice.” The name was changed in 1994.

I’d be interested in seeing that certificate because in 20 years I’ve NEVER seen or heard of such a thing. The point is you don’t need any special certification to practice in front of Courts-Martial. You only need to be barred in one of the states or D.C.

I understand now. 54′ was way before my time. This must be what is now known as the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. That you do have to be certified to practice in front of.

I agree with you that courts martial would be a better alternative and the pre exisiting body of appellate law makes the rules of the road less incertain for all parties.

I was sworn in in May of 1993.

I remember b/c I was pregnant at the time and nearly fainted during the swearing in.

It was in DC and a very warm day.

I was wearing I cream colored linen suit with windowpane stripe on it and my ankles swelled up so badly that I wound up stopping on the way back to my hotel to buy flat shoes to wear intstead of my courtroom appropriate 2 1/2 in high heeled pumps.

It might be worth noting that our government’s highest secrets have to do with what we know about what “they” are doing and how we know it. (Those clearances are so secret that even their names are more secret than “top secret.”) The reasons are obvious, if they know what we know and don’t, they can infer our means and methods and can then close off those flows of information and/or use them to give us disinformation.

I suspect that such reasoning was in part responsible for the fact that the Army was not warned about Major Hasan by intelligence officials. And I suspect there’ll be a severe reluctance going all the way to the White House to make such information available to Hasan’s defense team.

See MLJUMCJ comments regarding assignment of counsel.

As for the issue of pleading guilty to a capital offense in civilian court, I should have been more specific. I’m not sure about state or local courts but in federal court you can plead guilty to a capital offense. In courts-martial you cannot plead guilty to a capital offense even if you want to. The government has to prove its case if its wants to impose the death penalty.

As a bit of trivia, the U.S. military has not actually carried out the death sentence since the early 60’s (61′ I think). I witnessed to death penalty cases during my time in the Marine Corps. They took place back in 93 – 94 time frame. Both of those individuals are still sitting in jail.

In order for the military to carry out a death sentence, the President of the United States has to personally sign the death warrant.

I did the Court of Military Justice thing as an add on b/c I was making a trip down to DC to be sworn into SCOTUS, so I made my trip more efficient and took care of that an another admission all at the same time.

I suspect there will be severe reluctance as well.

My point is, under the civilian system, the prosecution has near total control over the process, so long as s/he is willing to not bring some charges in order to restrict the subject matter that can be discussed in connection with the case.

The prosecution controls the investiagtion, the prosecution controls what is brought before the GJ, the prosecution can limit what is charged to protect a given subject matter.

My reading of the UCMJ indicates, in the passages quoted above, that in the military justice system, the defendant has a level of input into all of those stages, that is simply not available in the civilian sytem and therefore the outcomes will not be identical in terms of the subject matter that may be exposed.

I’m not saying that I have any clue what WILL BE exposed, how can I? My crystal ball is out for polishing. I am mearly pointing out that there is a bit more of a wild card aspect b/c the defendent has a role in shaping the outcome, that is not what the general public is used to from its familiarity with the civilian criminal justice.

And, yes, I realize that CIPA type secrecy protections exist, I’m not an idiot, but I also know, and the Libby trial dramatically illustrated it, that even with CIPA protections–a whole lot of dirty underwear can get exposed.

That’s the thing, no patriotic American wants to compromise national security, but I know a ton of frustrated prosecutors and FBI agents, and even a couple of JAG officers who are frustrated beyond belief when “national security” is used as an excuse to cover up malfeasance and nonfeasance.

In such circumstances, it seems that even CIPA protections, don’t seem to protect all of the misuse/overuse of the classification authority and things that never should have been secret in the first place, just have a habit of somehow coming out.

Which is a good thing.

That MIGHT happen here, and the extra input that a court martial defendant has is an additional factor that the government does not have total control over. That was my point.

How come when you edit, all the paragragh break disappear?

I went back to correct some of my worst typos and now I jsut have big unreadable block of text. Feh.

Thta’s no incentive to tidy up my crappy typing

That hasn’t happened to me in comments but did happen a lot in the main posting. Title,
tags, and abstract before previewing, then my blank lines etc. remained, but otherwise they got gobbled up. It like to see that bug feature get fixed.

It’s a fake-out, Cynthia @ 39 – The original paragraph breaks do end up remaining, post-edit, although the edited comment screen of the comment author does show them as gone. Others, however, see the final edited version in its proper format, paragraph breaks included, as do you after you refresh the page. It’s a software-editing shortcut or flaw that has yet to be fixed, but the editing process does in fact still work as it should.

Thank you, mljucmj @ 25, for the feedback and the website link. You’re in good company, obviously, with the many principled military lawyers who have spent their lives practicing in, learning about, and improving our UCMJ-governed military justice system.

On this Veterans’ Day/Remembrance Day, it seems worth noting that some of the most atrocious government regimes in history, against whom many of our veterans fought and died, practiced a pernicious sort of selective humanity that our own federal Congress has now adopted – by endorsing selectively-abusive treatment of our military prisoners not on the basis of genuine need or justice or equal rights, but on the grounds of non-citizen vs. citizen, “them” vs. “us” and, all-too-clearly, Muslim vs. Judeo-Christian. Thereby bringing the United States down to the level of a depraved historical practice whose motto goes something like this:

Humanity for me, but not for thee.

The Congressional condemnation of the Goldstone Report is a recent example of this mindset in action. The leaders of Germany spared no praise or public solicitousness for the benefit of their own “worthy” people (never mind how they actually abusively used those people for their own self-aggrandizing ends), even as those leaders literally tried to exterminate another group of human beings in the name of their manufactured sins.

How are the leaders of Israel, and their enablers in the U.S. Congress, breaking away from that despicable pattern, by ceaseless praise and solicitousness for the “worthy” Jewish Israeli people, even as those leaders demonize another group of (relatively powerless) non-Jewish human beings for their over-hyped alleged “group” sins?

The same selfish, and self-serving, dynamic is demonstrated by our continued mistreatment, segregation, and demonization of the Muslim foreigners we hold in Guantanamo and elsewhere abroad. Our Congress – when it thinks of them at all – treats our military’s Muslim prisoners as guilty-by-way-of-detention-alone “foreign Muslims,” not as individual human beings, deserving of the same due process rights that we gave non-Muslim POWs – like the German NAZI prisoners we housed all over America during WWII – and alleged war criminals whom our military has successfully prosecuted in the past.

It’s also worth underscoring the fundamental separation of powers reason for the existence of more procedural rights for court-martial defendants than for civilian court criminal defendants. That’s the fact that military courts as designed by Congress operate wholly within one branch of government (unless and until an appeal reaches the Supreme Court), where the Executive Branch alone acts as judge, jury, and executioner. These special military courts exist because of the need for military discipline in a well-functioning Armed Force, and because we can’t transport our civilian courts abroad to war zones. Executive Branch-operated “courts” should be viewed as a necessary evil, and whenever corners start being cut to reach a pre-determined end, as the Military Commission show trials started by Bush and now blessed by a Congress under both Parties (and by a Democratic President) have consistently done (as have such commissions throughout their sordid past in this country), our hackles should immediately be raised.

We either have a third, Judicial Branch of government whose job it is to fairly enforce and interpret our law, except in the limited, and special, case of the Armed Forces, where there’s a unique need to enforce, and strengthen, the military chain of command, or we don’t.

The military discipline of our Armed Forces doesn’t require a military trial for the foreign prisoners at Guantanamo. And the intentionally limited-access set-up at Guantanamo, if anything, makes conducting trials of prisoners there more difficult, not easier, than using our regular civilian courts, for defense counsel, media, prosecutors, judges, and other staff who must travel off-shore under special military arrangement to reach its courtroom, as if traveling to a war zone.

The only thing “easier” about using the irregular Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is obtaining the desired pre-judged end, regardless of its legitimacy. That, today, is the state of “American justice” as endorsed by the United States Congress (a Congress filled with former prosecutors, defense counsel and judges, all “officers of the court” who are violating not one oath of office, but two).

I give you Oklahoma’s Senator James Inhofe, speaking this Monday on the Senate floor:

Mr. INHOFE.

[...]

Some may ask: Why are we [Inhofe hopes] adding another Gitmo amendment? Hasn’t everything been covered by previous amendments? The answer is clearly no. In 2007, the Senate voted 94 to 3 on a resolution declaring:

Detainees housed at Guantanamo should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.

Then, on May 20, 2009, the Senate passed my bipartisan amendment with Senator Inouye to the war supplemental bill prohibiting the transfer, release or incarceration of Gitmo detainees in the United States or its territories. It passed 90 to 6.

Senator Inouye stated:

We have not provided funding for the closure of Guantanamo because the administration has yet to produce a credible plan.

Unfortunately, the supplemental conference deleted that language, allowing detainees to be transferred or transported to the United States for trial.

Then, in October of 2009, the Senate voted 97 to 3 to pass the fiscal year 2010 Senate Defense appropriations bill that included language that prevents funding for any transfers, releases or incarcerations of Gitmo detainees to the United States through fiscal year 2010. The bill is in conference now, and we don’t know what is going to be happening to it.

On October 28, 2009, the fiscal year Defense authorization and Homeland Security bills were signed into law that would allow transfer of detainees 45 days after the President provides a plan.

[...]

I could probably talk for 3 hours on this floor, explaining why it is we should not give up this valuable asset called Gitmo. There is no place else to send these people, and I cannot imagine why there are some people, including the President, who seem to be bent on bringing those detainees into the United States. They have tried Fort Leavenworth, they have tried Fort Sill in Oklahoma, and some 31 States have now passed legislation saying they are not going to be in any of their facilities. So I don’t think it is going to happen, but we need to get language in there that is consistent to make sure we keep that resource open.

By the way, this is one of the rarer resources that is very worthwhile. We have had this since 1907, and there is no place else in the world that is set up to both incarcerate and try detainees in a military court.

With that, I yield the floor.