It appears that Barack Obama is moving forward with a system of non-judicial indefinite detention.

The reports are that he plans to implement this through an executive order.

We know that it’s a bad policy, because they are leading off with a lie:

One administration official suggested the White House was already trying to build support for an executive order.

“Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order,” the official said. Such an order can be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should either be prosecuted or released.

Every major civil liberties organization in the country denounced the plan. What’s more, the idea that civil liberties groups might think that would somehow be “better” if it were implemented through an executive order, which puts the power for the decision in the hands on one man, as opposed to legislation, which requires public debate and places the decision in the hands on 535 men, is simply a lie.

What’s more, the criteria for indefinite detention, at least on the basis of his speech ago at the National Archives, is whether or not a conviction can be guaranteed, which sets the precedent that the government will only accord the protections of a court to those for whom it is guaranteed to convict.

This is more than un-American, it is anti-American.

I will not vote for, or support in any way, a politician who supports this, even if the “Republicans are worse.”