DOJ presents recommendations for Guantánamo detainees

From the New York Times:

"The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on Thursday. However, the administration has decided that nearly 40 other detainees should be prosecuted for terrorism or related war crimes. And the remaining prisoners, about 110 men, should be repatriated or transferred to other countries for possible release, the official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the numbers."

Without knowing all the facts, I think this is the wrong decision. If the 50 detainees the administration proposes to imprison without trial pose a legitimate threat to the United States, the government should be able to (and required to) present some evidence to that effect, at least in the context of a military commission (which has its own problems, but is better than indefinite detention). Contentious arguments about humanitarian law aside, one of Obama's promises in taking office was to end the "law-free zone" that GTMO had become under the Bush administration. In that context, this feels like a step in the wrong direction.