Comfortable cities are based on security

Personal security from bad people is an essential part of the comfortable city. But freedom from an overbearing goverment is also an essential. The just-concluded trial of the man convicted of attempting to bomb the LA airport prompted remarks from a Reagan-appointee and a very conservative jurist.

Second, Coughenour said that Ressam's sentencing should demonstrate to the world that the U.S. legal system can try terrorists.

Coughenour devoted most of his remarks to this point, noting that Ressam received a vigorous defense, and that his guilt was determined "in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel."

Coughenour's comments amounted to a rebuke of President Bush's terrorism policies. After 9/11, the Bush administration initially proposed secret military trials for some foreign terrorists. And, it has sent hundreds of terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan to indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Here's Judge Coughenour's statement as a PDF.