US prosecuters are considering bringing charges of treason against an American citizen who helped make propaganda movies for al Qaeda, including movies threatening attacks against the US.
I've wondered for a while now why US citizens who are also accused of being enemy combatants (like Zacarais Moussaoui) aren't being charged with treason and being prosecuted through the US legal system. I mean, is it just the military trying to circumvent established judicial procedure, or are there technical differences? I don't know much about treason (okay, almost nothing); can it be performed for the benefit of non-state actors (ala al Qaeda)? What about Moussaoui's case precludes him from being tried (and possibly acquited) of treason? What about other US citizens accused of supporting al Qaeda?
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Oops, Moussaoui is a French citizen, not US. Yaser Hamdi, though, would be a good example. <edit> or Jose Padilla, since Hamdi renounced US citizenship as part of his release</edit>
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With Hamdi, part of the argument was that the evidence they had against him is classified. In order to put him through the US legal system, they would have had to release this classified information. To the Bush administration, this was unacceptable. After three years of detainment, the Supreme Court said they couldn't detain a US citizin like that and he ended up forfeiting his US citizenship and went to Saudi Arabia.
The difference between an enemy combatant and a traitor has to do with whether they were actively fighting in a war against the nation. The Supreme Court ruling of Hamdi v. Rumsfield establishes that the detainment of enemy combatants captured in connection to the war in Afghanistan was lawful so long as US troops were involved in active combat in Afghanistan. According to the Supreme Court's decision, an ememby combatant is essentially a prisoner of war. I would imagine that to be tried for treason it would have to be less direct.
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