Kelly Ayotte: “I would say that is an absolute concern here because this would be the first war in the history of our country where we…”

“I would say that is an absolute concern here because this would be the first war in the history of our country where we would be giving those we capture on the battlefield the rights to our civilian court system. Where do we draw the line? It would be outrageous to require members of our military and intelligence officials to immediately ask: Do I have to give Miranda rights? Do I have to worry about some of the speedy trial and presentment issues that come from a civilian court system? That is why, in the guidance of the committee, on a bipartisan basis, for this category of individuals, the presumption should be military custody because these are individuals who are enemy combatants with whom we are at war. That is fundamentally what is at issue. It does seem inconsistent--with what the administration is doing in terms of rightly going after these individuals around the world, and killing them in certain instances--that we would not provide them with military custody in the first instance. Mr. McCAIN. Could I also point out to my friends and my colleagues that, as is the case quite often, even though the vote was 25 to 1 on this provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee, we did provide, at the request of the administration, a waiver for national security.…”