of these important issues i join in indorsing and encouraging continued continued congressional administration ministration efforts to reform military commissions for the trial of violations of war during our country's found in the senate version of the first i understand that the administration favors adoption of a voluntary on the admissibility of evidence knowledge and respect the prerogative of the administration to resolve policy on all such matters chairman i'd like to offer my thanks to this committee for their hard work and tremendous support for soldiers and their families i can assure you that we are deeply grateful for and with that i look forward to your in two thousand and six congress enacted the military commissions act this act established the jurisdiction of commissions set baseline standards for their operation and prescribed substantive offenses the act also authorized the secretary of defense to promulgate procedural and evidentiary rules to be used in military commissions and to establish the elements of the substantive offense those rules were completed  early two thousand and seven and additional rules were recently promulgated by the secretary of defense on may fifteenth of this year and became effective on july thirteenth of this year the current framework in my opinion provides an appropriate balance that ensures important rights and protections for an accused while also providing the government with an effective means of prosecuting an accused before a military commission nevertheless there is room for improvement in a number of areas some examples include the rules relating to classified evidence the admissibility of hearsay evidence and statements of the accused information that must be disclosed to the accused and the type of review to be applied during the appellate process i recently testified before the senate armed services committee on its proposal that would in my view fix many of these issues but i recommended that additional changes be considered regardless of the method used to revise the military commissions act the first step toward the needed changes is  establishing an open dialogue to share views on these issues in september two thousand and six when we last testified before this committee it was the view of the general that whatever process was eventually established should be tested against two standards it must be consistent with our nation's notions of justice and we must be willing to have our own service members tried under the same standards that we apply those standards should continue to inform our discussion today as we consider changes to the military commissions act for that reason i commend your efforts and thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon and i look forward to answering your questions generate mr chairman ranking ranking member members of the armed services committee good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to testify today on the subject of military commissions i would like to emphasize that the views expressed in my testimony are my own and do not represent the views of the department o administration military commissions have a long history in this country as a mechanism to address possible violations in the law of war military commissions were used extensively during and after world war two and they were again called upon in the aftermath of the september eleventh two thousand and one attack after action by the executive and reviewed by the supreme court the congress acted in two thousand and six to pass military commissions act providing the president statutory authority to establish military commissions to try to look senses as codified in the military commissions act the effort to make military commissions more credible enhances national security required by the military commissions act the secretary of defense notified the congress in may of this year proposed changes to the manual for military commissions affecting procedures used by the military commissions those amendments will approve the military commissions process as a result of those changes obtained using interrogation methods that constitute cruel inhuman and degrading treatment cannot be admitted as evidence  at trial the burden of proof on admissibility of hearsay will shift to the party that offers it the burden will no longer be on the party that object to disprove its reliability  instruct the members to consider the accused not to be cross examined on the hearsay statements and that the statements are not sworn any such instruction will now be left the discretion of the military judge military judges administration changes to the military commissions act of two thousand and six have also been advanced by the senate armed services committee some of the recommendations include making the changes that i just mentioned statutory procedures act would with appropriate modification balance the government's need to protect classified information with the defendant's interest the substantial body of that law that has developed over the years would of the uniform code of military justice is desirable also retention of the current court of military commissions review which is comprised in whole or part of those with experience as military appellate judges who are comfortable reviewing cases for both factual and legal sufficiency as logical and i encourage you to closely consider these revisions and i stand ready to assist as appropriate in your efforts you have a copy of my full statement for inclusion in the record again i thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to answering your questions again a walker i thank you all members of the armed individual due process fundamental fairness and our national security and i support the majority of the amendments to the military commissions proposed by thirty nine because they will help maintain that difficult mcdonnell in general i'm a little confuse with something that was said before when you're talking about admiral the commissions could be properly held in the united states i was getting the just from you that insulated from outside distractions in fact we had a united states citizen that was brought to the united states who successfully prosecuted in a commission  setting case involving an actual u s citizen so therefore when we bring non citizens from guantanamo to the united states we should be able to do it as well however then general black i think made the statement that depending on the forum extra constitutional protections beyond from the court's ruling you know fifth  process rights and the like may attach depending on which court they get or which district they get or or or whatever the circumstance may be so i'm i don't know if i'm seeing can we be inside and the reason i ask this is because again like congressman ford said thirty thousand foot view my constituents in the sixteenth district of florida are going to be very concerned about us bringing detainees f to the united states so i have to look them in the eye and say the judge advocates are sure that we're going to be able to do this in a way that's not going to give them the same rights as american citizens that they're not basically defacto constitutionally protected american citizens because in their eyes or at least some of them they're terrorists so to speak so can you try limited one of the things you talked about voluntariness i completely understand your statements with regard to voluntariness and and and the classified information but i want to get into a classified information one of the things the or changing the act to move forward with regard to making sure that if we have sources in foreign lands that are helping us that we're not putting them in jeopardy and also you know whether or not  military justice that we're talking about but i do have a few questions for you my first question is is it the position of all of you that individuals that are detained at guantanamo bay right now could be detained indefinitely without a finding under any possible sources commission article three or a civilian court could they remain indefinitely without having any  proof to continue detention based on a decision to take them before one of these either the commission or the article  united states that could be put back into detention and that's the difference that i was pointing out earlier the difference between the power to detain and the power to prosecute but there would be a process following that and it would be what ultimately what is the purpose of bringing these individuals before either the commission article three as to the allegations what is the danger in allowing either involuntary or well involuntary statements or unreliable statements don't clearly have really battlefield reliability when you're talking about other factors that obviously are not similar to a criminal type of interrogation to me that sounds like a very reasonable compromise and let me say this we're obviously having all these discussions because it does not get any more complicated than trying to determine how best to deal with individuals that we