>But can we at least agree that a) such a person, with such a viewpoint
>could exist and
a) Yes, such a person could exist. However in order to distinguish such a person from millions of other people who also exist, we need to establish the fact that a particular person has dangerous intentions. It is not possible to establish this as a fact without something called "evidence". Say after me ev - i - dence.
> b) we don't have a good idea of what to do with such a
>person legally at this point?
b) By "such a person", I assume you mean a person against whom there is no evidence, merely unsubstantiated suspicion. What we should do in such cases is referred to as "investigation". If suspected of being REALLY dangerous, we might put the suspect under what is called "surveillance".
I'm not going too fast for you am I?
>I'm pretty convinced that what's NOT needed is some administrative way
>to have the Executive just declare him to be a "Yellow Rose of Texas" (I
>hate to actually use the term 'enemy combatant') and that's that. It's
>got to involve at least a judge or a panel -- or even maybe a Grand
>Jury? -- so that there's some sort of check-n-balance. If we're going
>to have it at all, that is.
You mean some judicial way of bypassing the quaintly old-fashioned notion of evidence? I see that I AM going to fast for you.
>Barbie says: domestic counter-terrorism is hard!
SURVEILLANCE, INVESTIGATION. Just too hard. can't distinguish between guilty and innocent. Safest thing to do would be to lock everyone up. You think it would be better to have a judge (or at least a "panel") do it? Good for you, relieved to see that someone is interested in [heavy sarcasm] checks and balances.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas