Obama = Bush on due process; so much for "hope", "change", due process, and rule of law

From Jacob Sullum at TownHall.com (hat tip: Reason, who published a version of this)...

In a speech he gave a couple of months ago, President Obama said he was determined to guarantee "meaningful due process rights" for terrorism suspects. But it turns out he is committed to due process only when it achieves the result he wants.

Last week, the Defense Department's top lawyer declared that the president has the authority to detain people accused of belonging to or assisting terrorist groups even after they're acquitted. The only point of prosecuting them, it seems, is to create an impression of due process while continuing Bush detention policies that Obama has repeatedly condemned.

We already knew that Obama plans to keep 90 or so of the 229 men who remain at the Guantanamo Bay prison, which he has promised to close by January, in "prolonged detention" without trial. In his May speech the president said these prisoners "cannot be prosecuted" because there is not enough admissible evidence against them yet cannot be released because they "pose a clear danger to the American people."...

Obama, who criticized the Bush administration for failing to give detainees due process...But how "meaningful" can such due process rights be when a conviction is the only outcome the government plans to respect?...

It's hard to imagine a situation in which the government thinks it has enough evidence to convict someone on terrorism charges but doesn't think he poses "a security threat." Since only guilty verdicts count, Obama might as well go directly to "prolonged detention" by presidential order, except that would reveal how little difference there is between him and his predecessor in this area...