The Balancing Act

To Cassandra: That's perfectly fine, seeing as I found myself unable to post yesterday. That made for a nice little impromptu switch.

I agree with Cassandra that these citizens' rights are clearly being denied, but that the justification is rather evident in light of the 9/11 tragedy. When the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent people are being put in danger, the government does have the responsibility to take action. That being said, as citizens of the United States, these men have the right to only be held for a reasonable amount of time (though naturally people will forever debate what exactly constitutes "reasonable") and to be allowed access to legal council, though I don't remember any mention of "cruel and unusual punishments". I can also understand why, in this scenario, the government was being rather tight-lipped about the plot, as again it is a matter of national security. Perhaps it could give more radical groups ideas.

I found it interesting that Mr Viet D. Dinh brought up that there are cases where someone can be held for questioning for an indefinite amount of time if they have such a large wealth of knowledge that they become a continuous source of information for police or the military in this case, but that the 60 men in the scenario almost certainly do not live up to that threshold. That was countered by retired Assistant Judge Advocate General Joseph R. Barnes, who pointed out that essentially the United States was in a war with this non-state entity, and during times of war it is seen as being alright to pull enemy combatants off the battlefield until the battle was over. The only thing different this time is that the potential enemy combatants in this case are United States citizens. I think the best thing to do would be to hold them for just long enough to determine which of them, if any, are truly enemy combatants, and then let the rest go free.

In general, while I do not like the restrictions of civil liberties discussed in this video, I believe that in such extreme circumstances they can become necessary to ensure the safety of the general population. As such, the government has the right to hold them for as long as they have a justifiable reason to believe that the men in question are a threat to the general population. However, to hold them past a certain amount of time, the government should have to provide proof that they are a threat. That time would almost certainly be longer than what we would consider "reasonable" for, say, a shoplifting suspect, but there should still be a threshold in existence.