Saturday, January 8, 2011

IntLawGrrls

IntLawGrrls

"potential to harm our national security"

Posted: 08 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST


Several hours after yesterday's sentencing hearing in the 1st civilian trial of a onetime Guantánamo detainee -- convicted of an offense that carries a potential life sentence -- President Barack Obama challenged Congress as acting against U.S. security. His exact words:
The prosecution of terrorists in Federal court is a powerful tool in our efforts to protect the Nation and must be among the options available to us. Any attempt to deprive the executive branch of that tool undermines our Nation's counterterrorism efforts and has the potential to harm our national security.
Such an attempt in fact had been made. Successfully.
Tucked into the annual defense spending bill -- passed by Republicans and Democrats alike in last month's lame-duck session -- were:
► Section 1032, which, as Obama explained "bars the use of funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act for fiscal year 2011 to transfer Guantanamo detainees into the United States"; and
► Section 1033, which "bars the use of certain funds to transfer detainees to the custody or effective control of foreign countries unless specified conditions are met."
Despite contending that these sections may "harm our national security," Obama chose against a veto. He signed the bill into law lest ongoing military efforts go unfunded. The quoted words thus appear in a signing statement that may have little practical effect other than to emphasize the approach of 2 anniversaries:
► This Tuesday, January 11, will mark 9 years since the 1st post-9/11 detainees arrived at GTMO, on orders of President George W. Bush.
► 2 weeks from today, Saturday, January 22, will mark 1 year after GTMO was to have been closed according to the order that Obama issued, in fulfillment of a key campaign promise, the day after becoming President.
Of the estimated 700 boys and men who are said to have passed through the detention center in the last 9 years, 173 remain.

On January 8

Posted: 08 Jan 2011 01:04 AM PST

On this day in ...
... 1911 (100 years ago today), Rose Louise Hovick was born in Seattle, Washington. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and she and her sister supported themselves and their stage mother by performing in vaudeville. Rose would become the well known burlesque dancer, Gypsy Rose Lee, about whom a couple centenary biographies, "each by a female academic," have just been published. Less well known is her authorship of The G-String Murders (1941) and another mystery. (photo credit) Also less known, her political endeavors: Lee was among several Americans who raised money for anti-Franco forces during the Spanish Civil War. She died from lung cancer in 1970.

(Prior January 8 posts are here, here, and here.)
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