[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 23652]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             INTRODUCING THE DETAINMENT REFORM ACT OF 2009

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                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 6, 2009

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the 
Detainment Reform Act of 2009, a bill to ensure that we can defend our 
national security while also ensuring the highest standards of human 
rights and justice. We owe such an effort not just to ourselves but to 
an entire world that looks to the United States for leadership. We are 
a nation where the rule of law is king, and our detainment policies 
must reflect not the whim of our emotions but the perseverance of our 
reason.
  Great thinkers have long noted that a society can be judged by the 
way it treats its prisoners. Since the terrorist attacks of September 
11, 2001, the United States has detained--for periods long and short--
thousands of individuals captured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere 
around the world. Many of those detained are guilty of committing 
terrible crimes. Many are innocent. We ought to have the authority to 
protect ourselves by detaining those who use murder, terror, and 
reckless violence to attack our country. But it must also be apparent 
that we cannot indefinitely detain those who mean us no harm.
  Unfortunately, many of those we capture and detain do not easily fit 
into our criminal justice system. This has complicated the efforts to 
provide the same constitutional protections accorded accused persons in 
the United States. To compound the problem, there exists no agreed-upon 
procedural standard in United States courts to govern the detention of 
individuals arrested outside the zones of active military operations. 
This lack of judicial coherence has created a vacuum in which the 
current method of combating terrorism is not only inadequate to protect 
our country, but also fails to adhere to the Constitution, federal law, 
international human rights law, and the laws of armed conflict.
  Under the detention regime in place since 2002, several detainees in 
United States control have died under mysterious circumstances. Many 
have been tortured. Still others have been held for years without 
access to a lawyer, no right to hear the charges against them, and no 
way of appealing rudimentary reviews of their status. They are outside 
our laws but inside our prisons, at the mercy of a process that is bad 
for our national security, bad for human rights, and downright horrible 
for America's image in the world. When we detain individuals for years 
without ensuring that they have access to a fair and accountable system 
of justice, we undermine hundreds of years of democracy. This system of 
arbitrary justice risks replicating the very authoritarianism we fight 
against. It is far past time to change.
  Madam Speaker, as I mentioned, we are a nation of laws, and Congress 
makes those laws. I am aware that many pundits, columnists, television 
talk show hosts, and others, have suggested that Congress cannot act 
intelligently or courageously on this matter. They argue that the 
members of this body are too bogged down in ``Not In My Backyard'' 
arguments, and too quick to accuse each other of being weak on national 
security. While the President has insisted on closing Guantanamo Bay, 
many Members of Congress have argued to keep it open. But the debate 
before us today is not about the place. It's about the policy. The fact 
of the matter is that this issue cannot be left to the Executive Branch 
to make it up as they go along. Congress has the responsibility to 
legislate on this issue in a manner that reflects reason, clarity, and 
an understanding that our detention policies reflect who we are as a 
nation.
  The Detainment Reform Act presents a plan for dramatic change, 
contemplating policies and guidelines to address not only current 
detainees but those who we will need to detain in future conflicts. 
This legislation creates specific definitions for those who can be 
detained and provides for a process of judicial review upon their 
initial detention. This model ensures that we will hold only those 
persons who pose a danger to our security, and that those who mean us 
no harm will not have to fear languishing in prison. This bill further 
provides for judicial proceedings to determine whether an individual 
can be charged with an offense, transferred to either his country of 
origin or another country, or whether he can continue to be held should 
the government petition for his detention. But in this last instance, 
the government will have to demonstrate enough cause to hold someone as 
a threat.
  Ultimately, Madam Speaker, this bill achieves what we are all 
seeking: a transparent and accountable process. Frederick Douglas once 
noted that ``the life of the nation is secure only while the nation is 
honest, truthful, and virtuous.'' If we follow his advice in this 
debate, we can better protect our national security, maintain the 
sanctity of human rights, and hold fast to the notion that America is a 
nation committed to justice for all.

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