> You snipped the rest of my post. After we convict them (or
> not!) of Conspiracy (1/10^7 of the crime they actually
> perpetrated[*]), they cool their heels, get out, and are just
> as determined to perpetrate a crime. What do we do with these
> people? It's a new kind of criminal, it deserves a new look.
Wait until they commit another crime, just like anybody else? There are many repeat offenders in prison. Many of whom it could have been reasonably predicted would commit another crime, even a violent crime, once they served their first sentence. On what basis do you distinguish?
It seems to me that, whether we are talking about the maintenance of economic and political conditions which creates a permanent underclass (and hence repeat violent criminal offenders) or the maintenance of economic and political conditions which create hostility throughout the world but particularly in the middle east (and hence create terrorists bent on committing violent acts within the U.S.), the question you raise applies. For me, the question is not what to do with the underclass and terrorists. It is what to do with the economic elite who intentionally maintain conditions which create them. *They* represent the threat to my physical security, and, as such, *they* are my only concern.
> [*] Conspiracy is tricky: at what point do you rush in an
> make the bust? Do you wait "just a little longer" so that you
> can get more evidence so that the scope of the
> about-to-be-commited crime looks worse in front of a jury?
> Some would say that's what happened in the 1993 WTC bombing,
> just that they waited a little too long. I admit: it's difficult!
> At what point of the last week before the Oklahoma City
> bombing would they have had to arrest McVeigh with enough
> evidence to make a conviction stick and achieve the outcome
> of taking him out of US society for a "long enough" time?
At the point he committed a conspiracy to commit a crime, which was when he agreed with another person to do so and took some affirmative step in that direction; the procurement of bomb-making materials would suffice. The sentence would be up to the jury and/or judge based on the penalties the applicable legislature has already determined fit the crime.
> You've skipped a step. I'm asking a question (What Is To Be
> Done?), not stating an answer -- I do NOT agree with the
> current Administration on what to do with these kinds of
> threats, but I'm not willing to just be happy with just
> "indict him or let him go" ... and the reality is, neither is
> the government.
Indictments are based on evidence (and are notoriously easy to secure). If there is no indictment, there is no evidence. If there is no evidence, the detention is arbitrary. The detention is based upon the judgment of a single, politically class conscious man who is nothing if not protective of his and his class' political and economic power. If the government (i.e., the ruling class) can use force against its citizens arbitrarily (detention is a use of force), then we are all in danger. At least those of us who are class conscious.
If you are not happy with the indict-him-or-let-him-go approach, then aren't you necessarily in favor of the detain-him-until-Bush-says-so approach? What other options are there when we are talking about the deprivation of liberty, which may not constitutionally occur without due process? If the Congress wants to extend penalties for conspiracy to commit terrorism, let them. But see 18 U.S.C. 844(n): "Except as otherwise provided in this section, a person who conspires to commit any offense defined in this chapter shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy." In other words, Congress has already decided that the penalty for conspiracy is the same as the penalty for doing the act. That being the case, a person arrested for conspiracy can be penalized as if he actually did it. And, indeed, one can get a life sentence for conspiring to use WMD against persons in the U.S. See 18 U.S.C. 2332a(a)(2).
The laws are already there. What isn't is a government that has any desire to abide them, preferring instead to maximize the power of the executive and to operate outside the bounds of the laws established by even fellow reactionary members of their class in the Congress.