Obama Plans Indefinite Terror Detentions

In a move that echoes the Bush administration’s approach to terror suspects, the Obama White House has drafted an executive order that would allow for their indefinite detention, the Washington Post reports. The move is said to be motivated by growing concerns that President Obama won’t be able to strike a deal with Congress over closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

The White House is also afraid it won’t be able to meet Obama’s January deadline for closing Guantanamo, the sources added. Though civil-liberties groups have protested mightily indefinite-detention policies, they “ have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order,” one official said. Such a move could then be overwritten and supplanted by actual legislation.
(More President Obama stories.)