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Comment by hyperman1 | Hacker News Reader

No. That's what due process is for. If you can't reasonably prove someone is a criminal, they don't belong in jail.

Compare: Throw the whole population of your country in prison. Clearly, you've also imprisoned every terrorist of your country. Should you be rewarded for that?

The Guantanamo situation is comparable: The US picked random people from the street based on gossip at best, or because they looked funny at a soldier at worst, and threw them in jail and tortured them. No process, no nothing. Nobody should be rewarded for that.

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It’s worse than that. The US offered cash equivalent to several years wages for turning in suspected terrorists. People immediately started reporting any tribal or personal enemy to collect a check and rid themselves of a rival.

The first suspect who died in custody was a cab driver named Dilawar. He died in handcuffs that were attached to a chain link cage. One of his interrogators said he knew the guy was innocent —- he had some experience interrogating terrorists —- but his superiors wouldn’t listen and he continued the torture.

> Compare

High ranking officers (I am thinking of Sir David Omand) reported a switch in the past two decades in the practiced decision making parameters, which accept more false positives to avoid false negatives in alarms.

As if one calibrated a spam filter to discard messages from the Embassy and stationery supplier to be sure as little Viagra and inheriting princes come through. "More security, too bad for the few innocents."

> Compare: Throw the whole population of your country in prison.

That's not a comparison to the situation in Guantanamo. 780 people were detained there, out of a potential 400 million (depending on where you draw the borders).

> Nobody should be rewarded for that.

One strike, you're out? Is that the rule you judge by?

Are 780 people, of which only 8% were actually "bad", "one strike"? Not to mention even most of the "bad" ones were not tried or given a due process, and most were tortured.

>> Nobody should be rewarded for that.

> One strike, you're out? Is that the rule you judge by?

That's how law works isn't it? Just because you've done a lot of good things doesn't mean that you shouldn't be tried for stabbing a person.

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