Why do you still support Bush?

Which obviously eliminates some of these (otherwise good and decent) folks.

It would appear that Mr. Imposter is not aware that the US Supreme Court has ruled on Guantanamo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3867067.stm

US Supreme Court Guantanamo ruling


Prisoners can now go to court
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay can take their case that they are unlawfully imprisoned to the American courts.

BBC News Online looks at the issues involved.

What did the Supreme Court say?

The overall ruling of the court was: "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay."

The court then described how this should happen. It accepted the argument from lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights that the Federal District Court in Washington DC (to which the case was first brought) does have jurisdiction to hear the prisoners' petition, under the "habeas corpus" law, that they are held "in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States."

What is habeas corpus?

Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase meaning: "You have the body." It is the name given to an ancient legal device under English common law (a mixture of judge-made laws, precedents and statutes). Habeas corpus was continued in American law after independence.

If a writ of habeas corpus is issued by a court, the person holding a prisoner (the "body") must bring the prisoner to the court and justify the detention. It has been a basic instrument under which courts in common law systems have protected citizens against wrongful imprisonment.

Why did the Supreme Court rule in the prisoners' favour?

The court was divided 6-3. The majority opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens and hinged on the definition of "sovereignty." He argued that, even though Cuba retained "ultimate sovereignty", the United States exercised, in the words of the lease from Cuba, "complete jurisdiction and control" at Guantanamo Bay.

Therefore federal jurisdiction applied there and "aliens, no less than American citizens, are entitled to invoke the Federal courts' authority."

The court rejected an argument that a case arising out of World War II should be followed in this instance (see below), saying that the two were quite different.

Justice Stevens quoted a predecessor on habeas corpus: "Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since [King] John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

The majority was formed by the liberals on the court, joined by the "swing" justices. One of the latter, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, said that the US government could not have a "blank check" even in time of war.

What did the minority on the Court say?

The minority opinion, on behalf of the three core conservatives, was written by Justice Antonin Scalia.

He based his argument on the "Eisentrager" case. This arose out of the arrest in China of a number of Germans agents accused of helping the Japanese after the surrender of Germany in World War II.

Their leader, who called himself Lothar Eisentrager though his real name was Ludwig Ehrhardt, had hired himself to the Japanese after the German surrender. He was sentenced to life in a prison in Germany but appealed for a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court ruled that this did not apply because he was an alien outside US sovereign territory. He was eventually freed anyway under an amnesty.

Justice Scalia said that the "carefree" court's "spurious" ruling on Guantanamo was a "wrenching departure from precedent" and "boldly extends the scope of the habeas statute to the four corners of the earth."

The consequence, he said, was "breathtaking." It enabled "an alien captured in a foreign theater of active combat to petition the Secretary of Defense." It brought the "cumbersome machinery of our domestic courts into military affairs".


Is this the end of the prisoners' "legal black hole"?


It should be the beginning of it, though getting access to the US courts does not mean the prisoners necessarily getting their freedom. But they do now have much more of a legal status and the courts might order a full clarification.


The Defense Department announced (on 7 July) that nine more prisoners will face trial by military commission, bringing to 15 the number of prisoners who will be tried in this way.

On 7 July, the Pentagon announced that cases would be reviewed by military tribunals. Why?


The Pentagon is responding to the Supreme Court ruling and is trying to pre-empt any criticism from a US court. It is setting up three-officer review panels to determine whether a prisoner is a combatant.


This is supposed to happen under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention which states that if there is doubt as to whether someone was a combatant, a "competent tribunal" should determine his status. The conventions have not been applied to the Guantanamo prisoners, so the panels, provision for which exist in US military law, were not convened. The decision to set them up now does not mean that Washington is suddenly going to apply the conventions but it is following them more closely.


The prisoners' lawyers are likely to argue in court that the panels are not enough and that the detainees should be properly charged or set free.


Whatever happens in the District Court is likely to be appealed in a procedure which could go on for many months.


end of quote-

Mr. Imposter does not realize that the rulings of the USSC are the law of the land--whatever they may be--and whatever we may think about them.
( Roe Vs. Wade) (Gore Vs. Bush)

Careful note should be made of the last line of the link-

Whatever happens in the District Court is likely to be appealed in a procedure which could go on for many months.

It is called the "rule of law", Mr. Imposter, and it takes time. It is not a one hour TV show where everything is solved in fortyfive minutes,

No. You usually call him a "fukin' moron."

You must have bought a new thesaurus.

BernardR, Isn't it wonderful that you're not one of those "captured" by the army and thrown into detention at Gitmo without legal representation for three years and counting.

Can you count, BernardR? How many at Gitmo has legal representation?
Do you know who's being held at Gitmo?

Most, if not all, are being held incongnito. Yeah, the SCC has now spoken. Good luck!

Cicero,

Are you suggesting that Bernard is/was involved with Al Queda and merely escaped the battlefields of Afghanistan and/or Iraq? Surely not.

What would you propose should have been done with those captured during combat operations? The military didn't just indiscriminately sweep up everyone, they took those who surrendered their arms. These are young men, many of whom came long distances from foreign countries to be captured on the battlefield. Many of those captured carried military gear. Perhaps you would be happier, if we, like the enemy, gave no quarter.

These detainees are not soldiers, they are willing members of an international criminal organization dedicated to the murder of Westerners and the destruction of the United States. They would have not one twinge of conscience before cutting your throat whilst you were touring some exotic foreign land.

Do I KNOW that for sure? Nope, but I'm sure enough to sleep more comfortably knowing they aren't currently capable of murder.

Ashman, Get with the program; many at Gitmo were not even in Afghanistan or Iraq. Many were captured off the streets of cities - and not in combat. Go smoke your pipe someplace else!

I don't often ask for citations to back a posters assertions, but ..........

Can you provide citaton establishing incidents where American citizens were "captured" off of the streets of American cities and confined in Guantanamo? How many American citizens are there in custody at the Marine base? If you know these things others should also.

Lock 'em up and ask questions later, eh Asherman?

I'm glad that helps you sleep at night...

He did not indicate that they were American cities.

If you can document the events, individuals and numbers captured off the battlefield, please do so.

Can you do so for those captured on the battlefield?

Like I said, Ashman, get with the program. I posted this earlier on this thread:

RIGHTS-US:
Gitmo Releases Suggest Numerous Mistakes
William Fisher

NEW YORK, May 2 (IPS) - News that the Pentagon will soon release about a third of the prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has prompted the U.S. media and many in the blogosphere to recall Defence Secretary Rumsfeld's 2002 statement referring to Guantanamo prisoners as "the worst of the worst".

And as recently as June 2005, he said, "If you think of the people down there, these are people, all of whom were captured on a battlefield. They're terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama bin Laden's] bodyguards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th 9/11 hijacker."

But the Pentagon's announcement that it would soon release 141 prisoners -- or about a third of those still detained at Guantanamo -- comes despite continuing stubborn defences of the facility and the way interrogators have determined the status of detainees.

This is not the first time prisoners have been released from the facility. Of the approximately 760 prisoners brought to Guantanamo since 2002, the military has previously released 180 and transferred 76 to the custody of other countries.

The Pentagon says the prisoners to be released no longer represent a threat to the U.S. and have no further intelligence value.

But critics of the George W. Bush administration's detention policies assert that the military does not have enough evidence on these people to try them, even before its own tribunals, which have a much lower threshold of evidence than U.S. courts.

Gabor Rona, international legal director for Human Rights First, told IPS, "If most of these guys are not al Qaeda, i.e., are vanilla-flavoured civilians or mere Taliban foot soldiers, then it gives the lie to the single mantra that the administration has left when attempting to defend itself against allegations of abuse in Gitmo: that the 'terrorists' are trained to make false allegations of abuse."

The Los Angeles Times, which reported the latest prisoner release story, said that charges are pending against about two dozen of the remaining prisoners. But it said the chief prosecutor left unclear why the rest face neither imminent freedom nor a day in court after as many as four years in custody.

Charges have been brought against only 10 of the approximately 490 alleged "enemy combatants" currently detained at the facility. None has been charged with a capital offence.

The U.S. plans to file charges against more Guantanamo detainees and will seek the death penalty in some cases, according to the top military prosecutor at the military base. But Air Force Col. Morris Davis declined to disclose details about plans to charge about two dozen detainees in addition to the 10 already charged.

The decision to release 141 detainees is the result of a yearlong review of their cases in which interrogators also determined that they could provide no further intelligence.

Since the U.S. started sending prisoners to Guantanamo in 2002, there have been increasingly shrill allegations from a variety of international legal and human rights groups that few of those being held were "terrorists". The Pentagon's own files suggest that the military made numerous mistakes in sending people to Guantanamo and detaining them there without charges or trials.

Many of these Pentagon "mistakes" have been held for close to five years. Some were not captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan, but kidnapped off the streets of Europe and various locations in the Middle East. Many were "sold" to U.S. authorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan for bounties. Many others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The fiercely nonpartisan National Journal magazine has reported that, "Notwithstanding Rumsfeld's description, the majority of (Guantanamo prisoners) was not caught by American soldiers on the battlefield. They came into American custody from third parties, mostly from Pakistan, some after targeted raids there, most after a dragnet for Arabs after 9/11."

Nevertheless, all were categorised as "enemy combatants" with ties to the Taliban, al Qaeda, or other groups that support terrorism.

While observers believe the Pentagon may well have evidence that some of the prisoners at Guantanamo were al Qaeda operatives out to kill as many U.S. citizens as possible, in many other cases, the "evidence" is based on second, third and fourth-hand hearsay. In still others, it is clear that admissions of guilt have been obtained through cruel and inhumane interrogations that many say amount to torture.

Pentagon mistakes are not difficult to find. For example:

A man named Saddiq has been behind razor wire for more than four years, even though the military acknowledged last year that he was not an enemy combatant. His lawyer says his opposition to Osama bin Laden makes him too hot to handle in his native Saudi Arabia.

The Chinese Uighur Muslims had fled persecution in China and some of them are still being held at Guantanamo. The military says they would not be safe if returned to their native country.

The so-called "Bosnian Six" are six Algerians who were seized in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2002 and flown to Guantanamo after the Bosnian Supreme Court dismissed charges against them of plotting to blow up the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo.

Said one of them: "I've been here for three years and these accusations were just told to me... Nobody or any interrogator ever mentioned any of these accusations you are talking about now. Not even one mentioned the embassy thing, the terrorist organisation, the Algerian Islamic organisation. It's weird how this just came up now."
There are also at least three children, ages 13 to 15, according to Human Rights Watch, a leading advocacy group.

According to Defence Department files, a watch worn by one prisoner was similar to another Casio model that has a circuit board that al Qaeda used for making bombs. The U.S is using the Qaeda-favoured Casio **** as evidence against at least nine detainees. But the offending model is sold in sidewalk stands around the world. And the detainee's Casio model hasn't been manufactured for years.

Murat Kurnaz is a Turk the government plucked off a bus in Pakistan and subsequently accused of being friends with a suicide bomber. The government did not tell Kurnaz's tribunal that his friend is alive and therefore could not be the referenced suicide bomber.

In January 2005, a federal judge singled out Kurnaz's case as evidence of the lack of due process in the Guantanamo tribunals. The judge said that his tribunal had ignored exculpatory evidence and relied instead on a single anonymous memo that was not credible.

A group of British men detained for nearly three years are now suing the U.S. government, alleging torture and other human rights violations. In a 115-page dossier, the men allege that they were beaten, stripped, shackled and deprived of sleep during their detention. They charge that guards threw prisoners' Korans into toilets and attempted to force them to give up their religious faith.

They say detainees were forcibly injected with unidentified drugs and intimidated with military dogs. And they claim they were subjected to abuse and beatings during their detention.

Each said they eventually gave false confessions that they appeared in a video with al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, one of the Sep. 11 hijackers, despite the fact that they could prove they were in Britain when the video was made. After they were freed last March, the men were questioned by British police but quickly released without charge


Ashman, Your defense of Bush's actions shows your ignorance about most things illegal - both morally and legally.

May I doubt that you really read c.i.'s response?

Drew,

I can't, but the military could. The names, numbers and circumstances are classified for good reason; to deny information to the enemy.

If you have any credible information that the detainees at Guantanamo were captured without due cause off of the battlefield ... lets see it. I wouldn't be much concerned if a known Al Queda operative were captured anywhere and sequestered in Guantanamo. The fewer of those international criminals at liberty, the better.

Walter,

Very well, I added the word "American" where it did not exist in Cicero's post. The only American citizen known to be confined at Guantanamo came back from Al Quida training in Afghanistan planning to unleash a nuclear device in the U.S. The American who participated in the prisoner revolt that killed Americans in Afghanistan was tried by an American court and is now serving his time in a regular U.S. federal prison. Are there any other prisoners at Guantanamo claiming U.S. citizenship? My faulty understanding of C.I.'s concern was that the government is more or less arbitarily filling Guantanamo with Americans. Mia culpa, mia maxima culpa.

Mr. Asherman- It is clear that Mr. Imposter has not read my post.

Again-would appear that Mr. Imposter is not aware that the US Supreme Court has ruled on Guantanamo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3867067.stm

US Supreme Court Guantanamo ruling


Prisoners can now go to court
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay can take their case that they are unlawfully imprisoned to the American courts.

BBC News Online looks at the issues involved.

What did the Supreme Court say?

The overall ruling of the court was: "United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay."

The court then described how this should happen. It accepted the argument from lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights that the Federal District Court in Washington DC (to which the case was first brought) does have jurisdiction to hear the prisoners' petition, under the "habeas corpus" law, that they are held "in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States."

What is habeas corpus?

Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase meaning: "You have the body." It is the name given to an ancient legal device under English common law (a mixture of judge-made laws, precedents and statutes). Habeas corpus was continued in American law after independence.

If a writ of habeas corpus is issued by a court, the person holding a prisoner (the "body") must bring the prisoner to the court and justify the detention. It has been a basic instrument under which courts in common law systems have protected citizens against wrongful imprisonment.

Why did the Supreme Court rule in the prisoners' favour?

The court was divided 6-3. The majority opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens and hinged on the definition of "sovereignty." He argued that, even though Cuba retained "ultimate sovereignty", the United States exercised, in the words of the lease from Cuba, "complete jurisdiction and control" at Guantanamo Bay.

Therefore federal jurisdiction applied there and "aliens, no less than American citizens, are entitled to invoke the Federal courts' authority."

The court rejected an argument that a case arising out of World War II should be followed in this instance (see below), saying that the two were quite different.

Justice Stevens quoted a predecessor on habeas corpus: "Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since [King] John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

The majority was formed by the liberals on the court, joined by the "swing" justices. One of the latter, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, said that the US government could not have a "blank check" even in time of war.

What did the minority on the Court say?

The minority opinion, on behalf of the three core conservatives, was written by Justice Antonin Scalia.

He based his argument on the "Eisentrager" case. This arose out of the arrest in China of a number of Germans agents accused of helping the Japanese after the surrender of Germany in World War II.

Their leader, who called himself Lothar Eisentrager though his real name was Ludwig Ehrhardt, had hired himself to the Japanese after the German surrender. He was sentenced to life in a prison in Germany but appealed for a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court ruled that this did not apply because he was an alien outside US sovereign territory. He was eventually freed anyway under an amnesty.

Justice Scalia said that the "carefree" court's "spurious" ruling on Guantanamo was a "wrenching departure from precedent" and "boldly extends the scope of the habeas statute to the four corners of the earth."

The consequence, he said, was "breathtaking." It enabled "an alien captured in a foreign theater of active combat to petition the Secretary of Defense." It brought the "cumbersome machinery of our domestic courts into military affairs".


Is this the end of the prisoners' "legal black hole"?


It should be the beginning of it, though getting access to the US courts does not mean the prisoners necessarily getting their freedom. But they do now have much more of a legal status and the courts might order a full clarification.


The Defense Department announced (on 7 July) that nine more prisoners will face trial by military commission, bringing to 15 the number of prisoners who will be tried in this way.

On 7 July, the Pentagon announced that cases would be reviewed by military tribunals. Why?


The Pentagon is responding to the Supreme Court ruling and is trying to pre-empt any criticism from a US court. It is setting up three-officer review panels to determine whether a prisoner is a combatant.


This is supposed to happen under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention which states that if there is doubt as to whether someone was a combatant, a "competent tribunal" should determine his status. The conventions have not been applied to the Guantanamo prisoners, so the panels, provision for which exist in US military law, were not convened. The decision to set them up now does not mean that Washington is suddenly going to apply the conventions but it is following them more closely.


The prisoners' lawyers are likely to argue in court that the panels are not enough and that the detainees should be properly charged or set free.


Whatever happens in the District Court is likely to be appealed in a procedure which could go on for many months.


end of quote-

Mr. Imposter does not realize that the rulings of the USSC are the law of the land--whatever they may be--and whatever we may think about them.
( Roe Vs. Wade) (Gore Vs. Bush)

Careful note should be made of the last line of the link-

Whatever happens in the District Court is likely to be appealed in a procedure which could go on for many months.

It is called the "rule of law", Mr. Imposter, and it takes time. It is not a one hour TV show where everything is solved in fortyfive minutes,

Now,Mr. Asherman, I will reference a source with which Mr. Imposter, in his frantic drive to denigrate President Bush, is probably unaware.





Sunday, May 07, 2006


Bush says Guantanamo closure possible after Supreme Court rules on military trials
Jamie Sterling at 3:02 PM ET



[JURIST] US President George W. Bush said Sunday that closing the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archives] is a possibility in the future depending on the US Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], which will determine the legality of military trials for Guantanamo detainees. The Court's decision on whether military commissions [JURIST news archive] for foreign terror suspects can proceed is expected by the end of June. In an interview [transcript] with German TV station ARD [media website, in German] that will be broadcast Sunday night, Bush said that he would like to close the prison and place the detainees on trial. Many human rights groups have criticized the US for inhumane treatment of Guantanamo detainees [HRW backgrounder] and the United Nations has called for the US to close Guantanamo [JURIST report], but the US government has in the past defended the facility [JURIST report]. Reuters has more.

In the UK, meanwhile, British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith [official profile] will take a strong stand against alleged abuse at Guantanamo and join other UK officials [JURIST report] in urging the US to close Guantanamo. Goldsmith is planning on speaking on the closure of Guantanamo at a global security conference at the Royal United Services Institute this week. US officials had previously discussed [JURIST report] the closure of Guantanamo with British officials. The Observer has local coverage.


*************************************************************

The USA operates under the rule of law and, as you have pointed out so many times,Mr. Asherman, "checks and balances".

If the USSC rules that Gitmo should be closed, well then it will be closed.

If the USSC rules that the militarytribunals should continue, well then, they will be continued.

The USSC rulings become the law of the land.

I am sorry that so few realize that the issue is being adjudicated.

I am not in favor of closing Gitmo but I will definitely adhere to the finding of the USSC since I believe in the rule of law.

I do not know exactly what Mr. Imposter believes in.

1. I don't regard a single news item/commentary with political implications as proof of anything, regardless of which Party-Line is being supported/attacked.

2. Thank you Bernard for two informative posts. I'll be more watchful for the Courts decision over the next few weeks as a result.

June 14, 2006
Habeas corpus
When news of the three suicides at Guantanamo Bay broke, the reaction among conservatives was fairly predictable: good riddance, some terrorists are dead. One local blogger commented, "Personally, I think we need to issue every one of these terrorist swine a six-foot length of rope, and require that US troops wear gloves and provide it with an honor guard like they do for Korans."

There's just one problem; it's not at all clear whether all, or even most, of the peole in Guantanamo are actually "these terrorist swine."

Back in February, Mother Jones magazine wrote about a study by Seton Hall law professor Joshua Denbeaux, who used data supplied by the Pentagon to look at who's in Guantanamo. His findings:

"55% of the detainees [in Guantanamo] are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies."

Also: "Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban." Perhaps not surprisingly, the vast majority of detainees in Guantanamo were captured not by U.S. forces, but by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance at a time when the United States was offering very large rewards for any "suspected enemies."


There's a very old legal principle call habeas corpus which protects people from being imprisoned without charges. Essentially, it requires the jailer to explain why someone is being held. It's part of the US Constitution, but it predates even the Magna Carta of 1215.

Requiring that someone be accused of something prevents people from being trapped in some kind of Kafka-esque nightmare where they cannot defend themselves, because there is no charge against them. In June of 2004, the Supreme Court determined that this right extends to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Shortly after that, Congress passed a defense authorization bill with an amendment that eliminated the right of habeas corpus at Guantanamo.

The president's justification for this has been that these prisoners are clearly dangerous enemies: "These are people picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan. They weren't wearing uniforms, they weren't state-sponsored, but they were there to kill."

Unfortunately, he's not being honest with us. Many of these people were picked up far from any battlefield. In February the National Journal wrote about the camp, asking:

But if proximity implies culpability, how do you justify the detention of so many others in Cuba who were arrested far from any Afghanistan front? How about the aid worker sleeping at home in Karachi, Pakistan? How about the men arrested in Sarajevo and sent by the Americans to Guantanamo even though they were clutching their exoneration-from-terrorism papers issued by the judge who had reviewed their cases? How about miscellaneous Arabs -- some fighters, some not -- who together with other refugees passed through Afghanistan's borders as war arrived? How about two British Muslims arrested as they stepped off a plane in Gambia?

What about the process for determining guilt? From the same article:

"Indeed, the evidence considered persuasive by the tribunal is made up almost entirely of hearsay evidence recorded by unidentified individuals with no firsthand knowledge of the events they describe," wrote Cmdr. James Crisfield, a Navy judge advocate general and the legal adviser to the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, in response to one tribunal decision. Crisfield scolded the tribunal for rejecting a detainee's request that a witness be allowed to present hearsay evidence. "There should not be a double standard for the government's ability to present hearsay and the detainee's ability to present hearsay evidence."

I am not naive; I know there are a number of very bad people in Guantanamo who'd like to do us harm. I don't know if Denbeaux's numbers are correct; of course, with the system in place at Guantanamo, there's no way for anyone to figure that out. But it's very hard to believe that there aren't a significant number of wrongly-imprisoned people there.

The goings-on at Guantanamo threaten to make us an international pariah; it's been criticized by some of our most steadfast allies, such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The idea that the US government has created this gulag-like system that has trapped them along with terrorists is horrifying. I worry about what happens when our government decides that basic principles of law are too much trouble to bother with. I worry about a government that gets a taste of the power to toss people into a black hole when it chooses. And most of all, I worry about a public that accepts this so quietly.

What happens when somebody decides that there are dangerous enemy combatants (but not prisoners of war) who happen to be US citizens?

All of this could be cleared up by simple adherence to legal principles that civilized nations recognize as the cornerstones of freedom from government oppression. It's disturbing to see the Bush administration so eager to toss those protections away.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

No Habeas for GITMO Prisoners
NYT's Neal A. Lewis reports:

The Bush administration notified federal trial judges in Washington that it would soon ask them to dismiss all lawsuits brought by prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, challenging their detentions, Justice Department officials said Tuesday.

The action means that the administration is moving swiftly to take advantage of an amendment to the military bill that President Bush signed into law last Friday. The amendment strips federal courts from hearing habeas corpus petitions from Guantánamo detainees.