I’m more than a little uncomfortable with this proposal. In fact, I think it’s unnecessary and does not address the matter truly at issue here - which is how to deal with terrorists, including those who later become naturalized citizens, who come to the US to carry out their evil agendas.

There is repeated discussion over how to deal with these terrorists once they come ashore, and that they should get military tribunals versus a law enforcement criminal trial in civilian courts. All of this is overwrought and needlessly complicated - both because the politicians want to ignore facts, score political points, and because they simply don’t understand the conflict before them.

It should be a simple test as to whether terrorists get trials or tribunals.

US citizens get trials, regardless of where captured. Among the charges should be treason - after all that’s what they’re doing by going to war against the US and carrying out attacks against the US and its interests around the world.

Naturalized citizens get civilian trials, regardless of where captured, same as natural born citizens. They too should have treason charges against them, and if convicted, stripping citizenship is a possibility - but not before.

Foreign born terrorists captured in the US get trials - they’re captured by law enforcement and should get tried and dealt with as such.

Foreign born terrorists captured overseas get tribunals; they’re picked up often by foreign countries whose sense of civil rights isn’t even close to our own. Some are picked up by US military forces overseas and the burden to preserve evidence for trial makes no sense on a battlefield in the heat of a battle.

Lieberman and others supporting this measure are hoping to jumpstart a discussion on how to deal with terrorists captured in the US and pushing them to tribunals, but as I’ve outlined above - this is a situation that would be better addressed in a much more common sense and objective standard.