Political Quotes

“Not only is what the Senator said accurate, but we have done something else in this bill. There is an Executive order that was issued some years ago that said there should be a periodic review process for folks who are being detained under the law of war. Because it is so unclear as to when this war ends, there is real concern about that. What do we do about that? So in this bill what we require the executive branch to do--and I am now quoting from section 1035--is to adopt procedures for implementing a periodic review process. Those procedures don't exist now. They are not formalized. So we want to formalize them for the very reason that the Senator from South Carolina addressed: because we want to make sure that since we don't know when this particular war is going to end, it is kind of hard to define it and everyone is concerned about that, you have got to have review procedures. The greatest review procedure of all is habeas corpus. But there are also requirements in the Executive order for a periodic review process of whether somebody is still a threat or not a threat, for instance. The war may still be going on, but the person may no longer be a threat. Should there be an opportunity for the person to say that? Well, there should be. There surely should be a regular review process. The Senator from South Carolina has been very much involved in this kind of due process.…”