> > I mean, would *you* want to visit a European state where the
> > government had passed regulations saying that basically you
> > relinquished all rights to due process of law by entering their
> > borders, and if they felt like it they could have you arrested,
> > tried by a military tribunal, and executed on the spot with no
> > appeal?
> If I were attempting to overthrow that government or even merely trying
> to engage in a propaganda war to destroy the hypothetical high trust
> society of that hypothetical european country, I would expect such
> measures as a matter of course. My revolutionary cabal's plans may even
> *require* that such measures be enacted, on the theory that they would
> engender mistrust and resentment enough to engender further support from
> the "useful idiots" in that part of the local intelligentsia who engage
> in arguments of moral equivilancy in order to shround their lack of
> responsibility as citizens.
Sorry, Mike, but when trials are closed, it's too easy to accuse
anyone of being anything, whether they are or not. PUBLIC trials
for all offenses are a fundamental human right everywhere, under
all conditions, without exception. Anyone who proposes closed
trials for any reason is an enemy of freedom and justice.
There are certainly some aspects of the American judicial system
that can be changed: jury selection, rules of evidence, many
procedural details. But openness isn't one of them: if anything,
American trials should be _more_ open: ALL of them, including
those for suspected foreign terrorists.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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