Internment can be defined as the indefinite detention of a person by a government and the denial of the normal legal processes that would usually be available to them, such as the right to know the charges and evidence against them, the right to a public trial, the right to appeal to a higher judicial authority, etc. While governments often resort to internment in period of national emergency, such as a war or during a terrorist campaign, the practice raises questions about the balance between security and liberty. Following September 11, the Bush Administration interned hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects in Guantanamo Bay under military authority without appeal to the US legal system. The action generated severe criticism from parts of the international community and prompted a series of legal challenges from civil liberties groups that have resulted in Supreme Court decisions recognizing the government’s right to detain illegal combatants but finding illegal the special military commissions established to try such combatants.
PROS
Governments must have the power to address threats to the nation. Everyone would recognize that laws that apply in peacetime might not be appropriate during war. Captured enemy combatants, for example, should not have the rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury that citizens enjoy. The war on terror is in this respect a war like earlier, more conventional conflicts. Just because our enemies do not wear uniforms or conform to a normal military structure does not make them any less of a threat to our society.
We must reach an appropriate balance between security and freedom. Everyone recognizes the importance of protecting rights and liberties, but this cannot be done at all and any cost. The first duty of our political leaders is to protect us from harm, and the voters will rightly hold them accountable if they fail.
CONS
The war on terror is not like past, conventional conflicts, and the administration cannot assume wartime powers simply on its own declaration. The September 11 attacks were horrific, but they did not threaten the existence of the nation—the economy has rebounded surprisingly quickly, and no one believes that even a successful attack on the White House or the Capitol would have ended American democracy. Nor is the war on terror winna- ble—there is no likely endpoint at which we will declare victory and so allow detained “enemy combatants” to go home. So these harsh but supposedly temporary wartime measures will become the norm.
Giving the government the power to detain suspects without due process will not make society safer. The proposition’s arguments rely on the accuracy of secret intelligence, which supposedly identifies individuals planning terrorist acts but which cannot be revealed in open court. Recent history suggests that such intelligence is often deeply flawed. Intelligence failures in the cam- paign against Al-Qaeda point to the difficulties Western
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At a time when our society is under threat, protecting our intelligence sources is more important than giving suspected terrorists public trials. Charging and trying terror suspects in open court would require governments to reveal their intelligence sources, thus risking the iden- tification of their spies. These revelations might lead to the murder of brave agents and shut off crucial intel- ligence channels that could warn us of future attacks. Even if courts made special arrangements for present- ing intelligence evidence, terrorists could use the trials to learn more about our intelligence capabilities and tactics. In these circumstances, detention without public trial is the only safe option.
Tough measures are aimed only at very few suspects— only a few hundred are interned at Guantanamo Bay. Exceptional circumstances call for special measures, but these are so limited in scope that they do not threaten our democratic values.
Although a normal public trial is not possible for security reasons, detainees’ rights are still respected. Safeguards are built into the internment process so that each case can be considered fairly, with the suspect represented before a proper tribunal and given a right to appeal to a higher authority. If a trial is held (often to standards of evidence and procedure higher than in regular courts in many countries around the world) and a sentence prop- erly passed, then this is not internment as it has been practiced in the past.
intelligence services have in penetrating and understand- ing terrorist groups, while intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs was also clearly flawed. So not only will many innocent people be unjustly interned, many dangerous ones will be left at liberty.
Not only is intelligence often badly flawed, internment simply doesn’t work as a strategy to combat terrorism. It is counter-productive, making martyrs of the individu- als detained. And, as Britain’s experience with the Irish Republican Army has shown, internment can radical- ize detainees. Moreover, the harsh measures undermine the confidence of ordinary citizens in their government, reducing their support for the war on terror. Indeed, if we compromise aspects of our free and open societies in response to pressure, then the terrorists who hate our values are winning.
Rights protect the few as well as the many. Indefinite detention and lack of a normal public trial undermine the key values of habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence. Try suspects if there is evidence and deport them if they are foreign nationals, but release them if the government cannot make a proper case against them. The British government said that internment in North- ern Ireland was aimed only at a tiny minority, but thou- sands passed through the Long Kesh detention camp in the four years it operated.
Regardless of the procedures that authorities use as window dressing to justify their actions, internment is open to abuse because trials are secret, with the executive essentially scrutinizing itself. Trials are held in secret with crucial evidence frequently withheld from the accused and his defense team or given anonymously with no opportunity to examine witnesses properly. Appeals are typically to the executive (which chose to prosecute them), rather than to an independent judicial body. In such circumstances, prejudice and convenience are likely to prevent justice being done.
PROS CONS
Sample Motions:
This House believes that internment is sometimes justified. This House would choose the lesser of two evils.
This House supports Guantanamo Bay. This House would detain terror suspects.
Web Links:
• Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/re- leases/2001/11/20011113-27.html> President Bush’s 2001 order on treatment of enemy combatants.
• International Commission of Jurists. <http://www.icj.org/news.php3?id_article=2612&lang=en> Statement in opposition to Bush Administration policy on internment.
Further Reading:
Berkowitz, Peter. Terrorism, the Laws of War, and the Constitution: Debating the Enemy Combatant Cases. Hoover Institution Press, 2005.
Fisher, Louis. Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism. University Press of Kansas, 2005. Margulies, Joseph. Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Rose, David. Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights. New Press, 2004.