Terrorism and Preventive Detention
Them today, us tomorrow? - Editor
Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, pressure to combat terrorism effectively, speedily, and decisively has warped–or even rendered unrecognizable–basic legal rules and institutions. Suspects taken into U.S. custody have, in some instances, been “disappeared” and tortured rather than arrested, investigated, and prosecuted.
Hundreds of others have been held in indefinite detention at Guantanamo, without explicit congressional or judicial authorization. Ad hoc military commission proceedings have, for some of these people, replaced fair trials.