What's happening with those poor devils at Camp Xray ???

"Interrogation" can simply mean asking questions. It doesn't always involve rubber hoses.

Scrat wrote:

"Interrogation" can simply mean asking questions. It doesn't always involve rubber hoses.

I know. This is why I said "highly unreliable", not "sure to fail and be cruel".

I simply noted what appeared to be your assumption that the use of the term automatically meant something more than a simple questioning.

Scrat, if 600 men are being questioned, how come the 'war on terrorism' is a total failure and there's more random, anonymous terrorism than any time in history. Oh, and bin Laden is supposed to be in the mountains but the CIA can't find him. How's that for a

Now don't tell me terrorism has always known fluctuations, included during the Stone Age, and that the USA have nothing to do with it.

Scrat -- you're one of those moral relativists the Republicans are so down on!

Supreme Court Takes First Case on Guantánamo Detainees

The Supreme Court entered a fundamental debate between individual liberty and national security today by agreeing to consider whether prisoners held by the United States since the war in Afghanistan can challenge their imprisonment in American courts.

The justices agreed to hear appeals filed on behalf of two groups of detainees at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The cases have been brought on behalf of 12 Kuwaitis, 2 British citizens and 2 Australians.

The prisoners are among more than 600 being held as suspected Taliban or Al-Qaeda members. They were swept up by American forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan in the campaign to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.

Lower courts have held that the prisoners cannot use American courts to challenge their incarceration because the United States has no legal jurisdiction over the Navy base, which it has leased from Cuba for more than a century.

In so ruling, the courts have in effect deferred to the Bush administration on actions it has taken in the name of national security since the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, more than died at Pearl Harbor.

"Cuba — not the United States — has sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay," the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last March, upholding a district court ruling. For that reason, the appeals court concluded, American courts are not open to the detainees. Lawyers for the detainees have asserted that the United States does have sovereignty over Guantánamo, since it controls the 45-square-mile base.

The Supreme Court will decide, probably next year, whether the District of Columbia Circuit was right. But the comments of lawyers on both sides suggest that the justices will be asked to decide something of more transcendent importance. [..]

Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson had urged the Supreme Court not to hear the Guantánamo detainees' appeal. His brief argued that the circuit court had properly interpreted a 53-year-old Supreme Court precedent to hold that "aliens detained by the military abroad" have only those rights that are "determined by the executive and the military, and not the courts." (Mr. Olson's wife, Barbara, was killed in the hijacked airliner that struck the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.)

The Center for Constitutional Rights, in New York, took a contrary position. "For over a year and a half, hundreds of people have been imprisoned in Guantánamo without charges, access to lawyers or to their families," the center's president, Michael Ratner, argued. "This lawless situation must not continue. Every imprisoned person should have the right to test the legality of their detention. It is this basic principle that has been denied to our clients and it is this denial that we want the Supreme Court to review."

The center's assistant legal director, Barbara Olshansky, said: "Never has America taken the public position that it is not bound at all by the rule of law. Such a dangerous and immoral principle should not be established now."
The cases are Rasul v. Bush, 03-334 and Al Odah v. United States, 03-343. [..] The outcome of the Guantánamo case may not be known for many months. [..]

"We hope that the Supreme Court will bring an end to the legal black hole into which the Guantánamo detainees have been thrown and ensure justice for them and their families," Amnesty International said in a statement today.

I see nothing wrong with the USSC considering this decision. Sadly, if they decide to uphold the lower court's decision, those complaining of that decision will call it a political decision by a conservative court.

If they decide to overturn that lower court decision, and thereby the standing USSC precedent in the matter, I wonder whether those on the left will call it judicial activism.

Just for the record, Scrat: Do you also wonder whether conservatives will complain about judical activism if they don't like the court's verdict?

I see nothing wrong with the USSC considering this decision. Sadly, if they decide to uphold the lower court's decision, those complaining of that decision will call it a political decision by a conservative court.

If they decide to overturn that lower court decision, and thereby the standing USSC precedent in the matter, I wonder whether those on the left will call it judicial activism.

If so many honestly believe these people are deserving of treatment under a different legal status, why has no one taken appropriate steps to challenge their status? Is it possible that these people are more convenient to the left so long as their status remains as it is: something the left can whine about but has no interest in actually challenging? Perhaps those who understand a bit more than you actually know they would lose such a challenge, and so do not deign to make it.

If its the familiar 5 against 4 (thats the numbers, right?) along what are generally seen as party lines - e.g., the elections 2000 ...

really? I too thought is was 5 to 4.

well, perhaps you are wrong, or is civility not your stong suit?
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Though sharply divided, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in Saturday to stop the court-ordered manual count of tens of thousands of presidential election ballots in Florida.

George W. Bush campaign workers responded to the order with "subdued exuberance." Ron Klain, a legal advisor to Vice President Al Gore, said the campaign is "obviously disappointed."

The high court voted 5-4 to stop a recount that had been ordered Friday by the Florida Supreme Court to address claims by Gore that some votes cast for him on November 7 were never counted

You're going to lecture me on civility? ROFLMFAO! Cool, very cool.