Anwar al-Awlaki & Samir Khan

[gvidas]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The injustices dealt to people in our very midst, such as Plthijinx, are turned a blind eye to, but let's make sure al-Awlaki gets handled by the letter of the law. That seems wrong in every way. How does it come to that?

Why do we care about process over justice? My guitarist was unceremoniously thrown in jail on the false witness of his insane ex; yes, he got "due process", but the process almost led to the worst possible outcome: children left fatherless and in the care of someone dangerously mentally ill.

Actual justice should be the desired outcome, not procedure.

You're absolutely right. There are countless cases of injustice, even in situations where the due process of the law is being followed. You barely have to have a longer-term memory than the cable news cycle to come up with examples of strongly, legitimately questioned executions.

So why do we trust that, in situations outside the law, the same system and same government will be more correct, or more accurate, in deciding guilt?

Conor Friedersdorf:

As far back as the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics, a bungled FBI investigation and a news media indulging its worst impulses turned heroic security guard Richard Jewell into a prime suspect. During the espionage case against Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist found himself held in extremely harsh conditions, including a long stint in solitary confinement. As the judge overseeing his case would later say in a formal apology to the defendant, "During December 1999, the then-United States Attorney, who has since resigned, and his Assistants presented me, during the three-day hearing between Christmas and New Year's Day, with information that was so extreme it convinced me that releasing you, even under the most stringent of conditions, would be a danger to the safety of this nation." As it turned out, that information was inaccurate, as evidence uncovered later proved. And Lee ultimately won $1.6 million in a civil suit against the federal government and several news organizations complicit in its wrongful behavior.

Remember the anthrax attacks on government buildings, media outlets, and the U.S. mail system? "As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one," David Freed wrote in a May 2010 Atlantic feature story. "This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade--and nearly destroyed an innocent man." His piece is about the persecution of Dr. Steven J. Hatfill. It's necessary to say so because Army defense researcher Bruce Ivins, who the FBI later fingered as the guilty man, might not have been the culprit either.

What's notable about the cases I've just mentioned -- and there are more like them -- is that the wrongly accused defendants were put through hell despite enjoying the safeguards of a traditional domestic law enforcement investigation. No wonder that government mistakes against folks afforded fewer rights have been even more common. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration assured Americans that the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay were "the worst of the worst." As it turned out, "Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants."

I don't really care either way about al-Awlaki. What worries me is the next person, or the one five people after. Who the media picks up as a horrible threat to society just after we drone them, whose story is never really told. Who is assassinated ('targeted for killing', 'bombed', 'present at a drone strike', whatever) for being a terrorist, on the grounds that we decided he was a terrorist.

Yeah, as UT noted, our justice system barely works when we use it. It's working less, the less we fund it. But it doesn't work at all when we we skip it.