Beck falsely claims Kagan supports holding suspected terrorists “without due process”

Glenn Beck falsely claimed that Elena Kagan supports detaining suspected terrorists indefinitely without due process. In fact, Kagan testified that, when detaining terrorist suspects indefinitely as enemy combatants during a time of war, a transparent legal procedure that included “substantial due process” has to be used.

Beck falsely claims Kagan supports holding terror suspects indefinitely “without due process”

Beck: Kagan agreed “under oath” that suspected terrorists can be “scooped up off the street, held without a trial, due process, indefinitely.” On his radio show, Beck suggested that the Obama administration will declare tea parties to be terror groups and stated that the administration is “pushing people to be scooped up off the street, held without a trial, due process, indefinitely.” Beck further stated that “Kagan agreed with it under oath.” He later stated: “If you're funding radicalized Islam, you're suspected -- that's the key word -- suspected of funding a terror organization, you can be held without due process indefinitely.”

From the May 20 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program:

BECK: When I say they are pushing people to be scooped up off the street, held without a trial, due process, indefinitely -- not my words, but is it John Holdren or Cass [Sunstein]?

PAT GRAY: I think Elena Kagan said that.

BECK: No, Kagan agreed with it under oath.

GRAY: You're right.

BECK: She may have written it too.

[...]

BECK: They won't even admit that there is a thing as radical Islam, yet they want to take all of those rights away from citizens who may be funding radicalized Islam. If you're funding radicalized Islam, you're suspected -- that's the key word -- suspected of funding a terror organization, you can be held without due process indefinitely. Citizens. Hmm.

Now, it's not fearmongering for me to say, well all they have to do is change the status of any group and claim that it is a terror group and they can suspend your rights as a citizen and hold you indefinitely. That of course is crazy, conspiratorial fearmongering.

Kagan made clear that “substantial due process” was necessary when detaining suspected terrorists

During her February 10, 2009, confirmation hearing as solicitor general before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kagan agreed with the proposition that the U.S. government could legally hold suspected terrorists as enemy combatants indefinitely. She further agreed that the process for making a determination that a detainee is an enemy combatant “has to have substantial due process” and that an “independent judiciary” should be involved in making that decision.