President Obama has decided to keep the military commission system that his predecessor created to try suspected terrorists but will ask Congress to expand the rights of defendants to contest the charges against them, officials briefed on the plan said Thursday.
According to another article in the New York Times, the upgraded military commissions "would limit the use of hearsay, ban evidence gained from cruel treatment, give defendants more latitude to pick their own lawyers and provide more protection if they do not testify."
Despite the "revamped" commissions this raises questions, and on the heels of decisions to repress photographs depicting torture it appears that the President may not be making as clean a break from the Bush Administration policies as he promissed during the campaigned. Beyond the civil rights issues of the decision to continue the military commissions there are political issues. President Obama has made it clear that he intends to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, however, as of yet there is no clear plan to how it will be shut down and what will happen with the detainees. Congress has already denied the $80 million that the President has requested to fund closing Guantanamo, and there is increasing political pressure not to allow detainees to be transferred to the United States.
