Bush Order: Terror Trials by Military

By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush (news - web sites) signed an order Tuesday that would allow the government to try people accused of terrorism in front of a special military commission instead of in civilian court.

``This is a new tool to use against terrorism,'' Gonzales said in a telephone interview. He said there were precedents in World War II and the Civil War.

The White House was to release the order late Tuesday. Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court judge who is the president's top lawyer, said a military commission could have several advantages over a civilian court. It is easier to protect the sources and methods of investigators in military proceedings, for example, and a military trial can be held overseas.

The order is the latest effort by the administration to toughen the nation's laws against terrorists.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration pushed through Congress an anti-terrorism bill that Bush said was vital but civil liberties groups said went to far, violating Americans' constitutional rights. It expands the FBI's wiretapping and electronic surveillance authority and imposes stronger penalties for harboring or financing terrorists. The measure also increases the number of crimes considered terrorist acts and toughens the punishments for committing them.

Under the new order, Bush could establish a military commission in the future by asking the secretary of defense to establish the rules for one.

Gonzalez said: ``Any individual subject to the order would be given a full and fair trial, pursuant to the secretary of defense.''

The administration has been considering both military and civilian trial options. In either scenario, any suspect would retain rights to a lawyer and to a trial by jury.

The military proceedings would give the government greater latitude, according to one military law expert. New York attorney Victor St. John said last month, ``A military court would probably have more control over things like media coverage and location. There is certainly a greater sense of security and formality that might keep things from dissolving into a circus.''

http://www.dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011113/ts/attacks_bush_34.html

"Hitler's hostility to the idea of law and due process and his scorn for lawyers were more of a break with German tradition than his attack on democracy...Hitler regarded any system of law and any constitution with suspicion as restrictions on his arbitrary authority as Fuhrer... He preferred to retain the existing legal system formally....while eroding both it and the constitution through the passing of emergency powers and by developing alternative instruments ad hoc as they were needed...Hitler's intentions were made clear in the decree for the Protection of the People and State suspending all guarantees of privacy and individual freedom ...giving the Gestapo the right which they continued to take people into 'protective custody' and held without trial. His next decree Against Treasonable Activities enlarged the concept of treason beyond that of the penal code ...and set up special courts with 'simplified' procedures to deal with this and other offenses along with a decree for stiffening penalities for 'malicious attacks on the state' ... these trials were moved to a special court (after the supreme court aquitted people on lack of evidence that Hitler wanted convicted) with judges loyal to the regime...Hitler said "The theory of equality before the law cannot be allowed to lead to the granting of equality to those who treat law with contempt...the government will grant equality to those who support the government...The nation, not the individual must the center of legal concern." (March 23 1933)

the above is taken from "Hitler and Stalin - parallel lives"My advice is that if Bush and some of the rest of them do not want to be a subject of a book "Bush and Hitler - parallel lives" they might want to consider stopping paralleling the NazisFor further parallels with what is going on and the former Nazi regime visit the following page - >Hitler's anti-terrorism bill

The supreme court of Germany aquitted the suspected terrorists who the Nazis claimed burned down the Reichstag, and so Hitler just had them arrested under that Gestapo law and retried (a breech of all legal precendents) and executed and then passed the new law for new courts so that it wouldn't happen again and those he wanted found guilty would be found guilty ... the law, evidence, judges, consitutions, juries, such messy messy things ...