The latter article quoted Neal Katyal, who is now Obama’s Principal Deputy Solicitor General, favoring the “national security court” as an option even for defendants acquitted in federal court. As Katyal explained the idea in this article (written before Obama’s election):

“Now, what is needed is a serious plan to prosecute everyone we can in regular courts, and a separate system to deal with the very small handful of cases in which patently dangerous people cannot be tried.

“That’s where a national security court could come in. A system staffed by federal judges, with experienced counsel on both sides, in which the government would have an ability to temporarily detain a dangerous individual. It might be limited to those situations when a criminal trial has failed.”

Ah. So you try the terrorist, and if he’s acquitted, you go to a different court to keep him in custody. (“Temporarily,” of course. And what is meant by “temporarily”? Until the war on terror is over? Until the patently dangerous person no longer wishes to kill every American he sees? How long would Obama’s national security courts hold an acquitted person after the criminal trial has failed?) The rationale for the separate system of justice: we might not win in the existing system.

That’s a show trial.