What would have been an good response?

Military tribunals in today's society are significant for a number of reasons. The first reason is the fact that tribunals were used against known terrorists by the Bush administration during the War on Terror (Emanuel, 2002). A military tribunal is essentially used to try people that are suspected of violating laws of war according to the Military Commissions Act of 2009 ("Comparison", n.d). Military tribunals are not a new function to the War on Terror, they have also been used throughout U.S. history including the Revolutionary War and World War 2. They are significant to our current time period because they have been used against terrorists, essentially limiting their rights and access to the Federal court system for the purpose of war time necessity and national security.

The case of Johnson v Eisentrager, 339 US 763(1950) provides a good example of how military tribunals have been used in the past, and how the Supreme Court then viewed the issue. Essentially the Supreme Court issued the opinion that U.S. Federal Courts did not have jurisdiction over war criminals that were held and tried on foreign soil. This case is significant because it strengthened the use of military tribunals for holding and prosecuting enemy combatants. I think this opinion for the most part would still be upheld today. National security and the defense of the country remains a high priority in today's War on Terror, although I think there are definitely more people opposed to this. A good quote from Professor Aharon Barak, an Israeli Supreme Court President, "it is the fate of democracy that it does not see all means as justified, and not all the methods adopted by its enemies are open to it. On occasion, democracy fights with one hand tied" (Emanuel, 2002). I think this does apply to the way the U.S. conducts itself. It's a fine line between constitutional and basic rights against national security measures.

After reading the article about the CIA black sites and waterboarding technique, I have mixed feelings. I understand the need to interrogate dangerous enemies for information, but I also understand that there should be a limit to what we do to enemy combatants. If waterboarding or any other technique is not authorized to use, then it shouldn't be used. I think the problem with agencies like the CIA using these types of techniques is the fact that their work is so top secret, no one would ever know if they do use them or not. I also think it's suspicious that the classification of some of the information in these cases was changed right before hand, making it difficult to go through the process. That fact points to foul play and illegal activity. Also, the fact that high ranking agency personnel went to see the practice of waterboarding in person was probably important in helping the upper echelon understand what it actually does. Overall, I believe national security, information gathering, and self-defense are vitally important and I believe in the right situations military tribunals and interrogative techniques should be used, but within sensible limits.