"That's the killer," Graham told McClatchy newspapers. "I don't feel good about telling someone -- no matter who they are -- 'We're going to execute you next week, but I'm sorry, we can't tell you why.'"
Graham apparently believes the United States can give an alleged al-Qaida killer the classified information collected against him without endangering the sources who collected it for us. Leave aside what sort of communications a detained or convicted terrorist may or may not be able to manage from prison. If the military tribunals are indeed fair, they will likely acquit some accused terrorists -- maybe even some guilty ones.
Wonder what that will do to inspire sources in the Islamic world to squeal on al-Qaida.
It ought to be self-evident that our Bill of Rights was not intended to protect unlawful combatants who commit immoral acts of war against us. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the authority "to define and punish ... offenses against the law of nations," has always been understood to authorize Congress to create military tribunals where unlawful combatants are tried outside the protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, which govern civilian criminal trials.
The Supreme Court made this clear in Ex Parte Quirin, the 1942 decision that upheld the use of a military tribunal to try a group of Nazi saboteurs who had landed on U.S. soil.
"We conclude," said the Court, "that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments did not restrict whatever authority was conferred by the Constitution to try offenses against the law of war by military commission, and that petitioners, charged with such an offense not required to be tried by jury at common law, were lawfully placed on trial by the commission without a jury."
The only thing that should matter to Lindsey Graham and other members of Congress is not whether the government presents to the accused terrorist all the relevant evidence, but whether it presents that evidence to the honorable men and women who must sit in judgment of the accused.