Federal Judiciary

The President, on long-term detention

By Akin Gump Supreme Court Practice Group

President Obama, in a press interview on Thursday, said it would give him “huge pause” to create a new system of long-term detention without trial of terrorism suspects.  After a flurry of news accounts, floating unattributed reports that the President would set up such a system by Executive Order, he told the Associated Press that “I am not comfortable with doing something this significant through executive order.”

Overall, he said, his administration was proceeding “very carefully on this front.”  He added that “it may turn out after looking at all the dimnsions of this, that I don’t feel comfortable with the proposals that surface in how to deal with this issue…”

The part of the interview dealing with this subject can be read here.

Full post as published by SCOTUSBLOG on July 03, 2009 (boomark / email).