Key Guantanamo Cases Hit Supreme Court..

[JMS]

A couple of good articles on these cases being heard at the supreme court this week.

1. First one from the Wall Street Journal which sides with Bush.
   
2. Second one from the Christian Science Monitor.. ( great paper) which goes more down the middle of the issue..
   
3. Finally one from the LA times which takes a side more against Bush.
   

I'll post all the articles in the thread... but in different posts.

First Wall Street Journal. Pro Bush Argument...

Gitmo Goes To Court (Rivkin, Casey, WSJ)

Thursday, December 6, 2007; A19

The Wall Street Journal

By David B. Rivkin Jr. And Lee A. Casey

The Supreme Court heard a spirited argument yesterday on whether foreign enemies, captured and held overseas, are entitled to the protections of the United States Constitution. Since the founding of our republic, the answer to that question has always been an unequivocal "No."

If, after hearing Boumedienne v. Bush, the Court makes up new rules, it will mark an unprecedented expansion of judicial power into areas -- the conduct of foreign affairs and warmaking -- the Constitution reserves to the president and Congress, the elected representatives of the American people. The Boumedienne case is as much about the Supreme Court's willingness to constrain its own power as it is about detainee rights.

This latest challenge to the Bush administration's war policies was brought by enemy combatants held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, who claim the right to a habeas corpus hearing -- to determine the legality of their detention -- before the federal courts. Congress attempted to foreclose such claims in 2005, when it passed the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA), creating an elaborate administrative process through which detainees can contest their classification as "enemy combatants," with an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and the Supreme Court. All other federal court jurisdiction was withdrawn at that time.

Nevertheless, because the Supreme Court wanted to clarify that the new system applied to pending, as well as future, cases, the Court permitted these challenges to go forward in its 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Congress responded immediately, passing the Military Commissions Act (MCA) and overruling Hamdan.

The MCA established a system of military tribunals to try the Guantanamo detainees, again with appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and the Supreme Court. The law also stated with remarkable clarity that these procedures excluded all other judicial review for detainee claims, past, present and future. As one judge wrote in dismissing Mr. Boumedienne's case after the MCA was enacted -- "it is almost as if the [congressional] proponents of these words were slamming their fists on the table shouting 'When we say 'all,' we mean all -- without exception.'"

Last April, the Supreme Court appeared to agree, refusing to revive the appeals. Unfortunately, it changed its mind in June, agreeing to consider whether Congress can constitutionally refuse the Guantanamo detainees -- who are not U.S. citizens or held on U.S. territory -- access to habeas corpus rights. This is not a close question. When the framers adopted the Constitution to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" they were not talking about enemy aliens overseas engaged in a war against the republic they founded.

That, certainly, was the Supreme Court's conclusion in Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), which involved similar claims by Germans arrested by U.S. forces in China, and then imprisoned in occupied Germany. Their habeas claims were rightly rebuffed.

As Justice Robert Jackson wrote for the Court, "uch extraterritorial application of organic law [the Constitution] would have been so significant an innovation in the practice of governments that, if intended or apprehended, it could scarcely have failed to excite contemporary comment." Such a rule would, indeed, have been bizarre -- handicapping the U.S. in its foreign relations and putting it at a permanent disadvantage compared to every other country on earth.

That was true in 1950, and it remains true today. To grant constitutional rights to the Guantanamo detainees, the Supreme Court must ignore its own settled precedent -- on which the president and Congress were entitled to rely -- and rewrite the Constitution itself.

The consequences would be disastrous. Such a decision would bring judges to the battlefield. As Justice Jackson warned, permitting foreign enemies to haul American officials into court "would diminish the prestige of our commanders, not only with enemies but with wavering neutrals. It would be difficult to devise more effective fettering of a field commander than to allow the very enemies he is ordered to reduce to submission to call him to account in his own civil courts and divert his efforts and attention from the military offensive abroad to the legal defensive at home."

Because the Constitution does not apply to foreigners overseas, the procedural rights accorded to the Guantanamo detainees are a matter exclusively for the political branches. Subjecting them to constitutional scrutiny would overstep the judiciary's legitimate power, making it the ultimate arbiter of U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, if the Court were to grant constitutionally-based habeas rights to aliens overseas, there is no principled means of avoiding extension of the entire Constitution anywhere in the world where U.S. forces (or officials) may go.

For the first time in American history, an entire panoply of the federal government's overseas actions directed at foreigners, including surveillance and even use of deadly force, would become subject to constitutional strictures. This would transform the U.S. into a Gulliver, bound by its own judicial strings, on the international stage.

The Constitution grants the Supreme Court a limited original jurisdiction, and leaves Congress free to define its appellate authority and the judicial power of the lower federal courts. Here, Congress has determined that detainees will have certain administrative means of challenging their detention, and a review by the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court. That is all Congress deemed appropriate here -- and, needless to say, this is more than other captured enemy combatants have received in the past.

Even if habeas corpus applied -- and there is no precedent for its application (either in British or American practice) to foreigners held overseas -- the processes established by Congress in the DTA and MCA would constitute an adequate substitute. The Supreme Court has long recognized that, even with respect to Americans held in the U.S., habeas review is limited in scope. It focuses on questions of law rather than a detailed analysis of the factual record. Many different procedures are sufficient to meet any constitutional habeas requirement.

In these cases, the factual inquiry detainees are accorded under the Pentagon's "combatant status review tribunals" are an adequate substitute for habeas. They are modeled on the review legitimate prisoners of war would receive under the Geneva Conventions in accordance with the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and linked with the right of appeal to the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court on procedural and constitutional standards. This fact alone is more than sufficient for the Court to uphold the MCA, without ever reaching the underlying constitutional issues involved. Justice Anthony Kennedy -- a potential decisive vote in this case -- seemed sympathetic to this argument.

After years of public debate, with many of the key issues playing a prominent role in the presidential and congressional elections, Congress and the president have created a system that allows enemy combatants to challenge their detention, and to achieve a limited judicial review in U.S. courts. This is sufficient. The Supreme Court should not reject the law merely because it might disagree with the policy results adopted by the elected branches of government.

The Court has already meddled more in this area in the last several years than in all of prior history. It has no right to demand more.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey served in the U.S. Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

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[JMS]

Second the Christian Science Monitor Article which is more even and balanced..

Key Guantánamo Cases Hit Supreme Court (Richey, CSM)

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The Christian Science Monitor

By Warren Richey

WASHINGTON

Habeas corpus – the right to test the legality of one's detention before a neutral judge – is widely recognized as a cornerstone of government rule by law and the most basic guarantee of individual freedom. The Founding Fathers deemed it so fundamental that they wrote it into the body of the Constitution itself.

But does that core freedom extend overseas to America's enemies in the war on terror?

On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court takes up two potential landmark cases examining the legality of America's treatment of terror suspects at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

The stakes are enormously high, not just for the detainees but for the Bush administration as well. If constitutional and other legal rights extend to the 305 enemy combatants currently being detained at the naval base, administration officials, military officers, interrogators, and others could be forced by federal judges to appear in open court to reveal every detail of how detainees were captured and treated – including harsh interrogation methods and alleged torture. If the administration refuses to comply, the remedy under habeas corpus is immediate release from custody.

"That is precisely why the administration is fighting so hard," says Bradford Berenson, a former associate counsel in the Bush White House. "They feel there needs to be a balance between the security imperatives and the [legal] process."

Mr. Berenson adds, "Any process that is likely to force them to release suspected terrorists back onto the global battlefield is regarded as a very bad thing for the country."

Lawyers representing four groups of Guantánamo detainees are urging the high court to declare that their clients have a constitutionally guaranteed right to have the legality of their imprisonment examined by a federal judge.

"The founders of our nation created a Constitution dedicated to the protection of liberty, not one that turns a blind eye to indefinite detention without a meaningful opportunity to be heard," writes Seth Waxman, solicitor general during the Clinton administration, in his brief on behalf of the detainees.

US Solicitor General Paul Clement counters that the administration has worked with Congress to enact an unprecedented array of legal safeguards at Guantánamo. "The detainees now enjoy greater procedural protections and statutory rights to challenge their wartime detentions than any other captured enemy combatants in the history of war," Mr. Clement writes in his brief.

Many safeguards have been enacted reluctantly by the Pentagon to head off or satisfy rulings by the Supreme Court.

The Bush administration's original idea in locating the terror prison camp at Guantánamo was by keeping it outside US borders, its operations would be beyond the reach of US constitutional rights.

When the camp opened in January 2002, that meant foreign terror suspects captured around the world could be detained, interrogated, and prosecuted at Guantánamo without the robust legal safeguards and judicial oversight that would have applied had the detainees been held within the United States.

But then in 2004, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's position that Guantánamo detainees lacked any rights to habeas corpus protections.

Shortly after that ruling, the Pentagon created a system of military tribunals designed to review each detainee's status as an enemy combatant. More than 400 detainees have been transferred to custody in other countries or released from Guantánamo after tribunal hearings.

Government lawyers urged federal judges in Washington to dismiss remaining habeas corpus petitions, arguing that adequate administrative alternatives now exist at Guantánamo.

When the flood of litigation continued, the Republican-controlled Congress responded by passing a law stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear the detainees' habeas petitions.

A federal appeals court upheld the court-stripping law, ruling that because the detainees at Guantánamo are foreigners held outside the US, they enjoy no legal rights beyond participating in the special process set up at Guantánamo by the Pentagon and Congress.

Lawyers for the detainees say that military tribunals do not provide for the kind of searching independent scrutiny that a federal judge is empowered to provide in response to a habeas petition.

Under the military tribunal system, there is no right to legal counsel, information obtained through coercive interrogation techniques and any torture can be admitted as evidence, and the tribunal can rely on classified information never shown to the detainee.

"From the beginning, this administration treated the law as an impediment to be avoided. Guantánamo is the place where they thought they could do that," says Thomas Wilner, who represents one group of detainees in the high-court case.

"The reason the government has continued to defend this so strongly, despite the international outrage about it and despite the fact that it is so contrary to our fundamental values, is because of a fear of exposure of the mistakes they made, and embarrassment as a result of it, and maybe legal action," Mr. Wilner says.

"I guess one solution would be to execute all the people at Guantánamo, and then they could never talk," he quips. But he quickly adds, "We are a country that believes in shining the light of the sun on things."

Berenson says the Bush administration is attempting to fight and win a war. Both the president and Congress have agreed on a set of rules to govern terrorism detentions, and the courts should respect their efforts, he says.

"The people on the administration side of this debate feel it is very important for the courts to play a relatively modest role and not to inhibit experimentation in policymaking by the politically accountable branches," Berenson says.

Wilner sees the case as a watershed event similar to the high court's infamous Korematsu decision, upholding the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

"The justices will be judged by the rest of the world and by history by how they vote in this case," he says.

Decisions in the two cases, Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. US, are expected by late June.

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[JMS]

Lastly the La Times one, which takes the position more against Bush.

High Court Hears Gitmo Detainee Rights Case (Savage, LAT)

Thursday, December 6, 2007

The Los Angeles Times

By David G. Savage

WASHINGTON - Nearly six years after foreign prisoners were first sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a clearly divided Supreme Court debated Wednesday how to determine whether these men are dangerous enemy fighters or innocent bystanders caught up in the U.S. war against terrorism.

Regardless of what the court decides, the answer will not come for many months. And the likelihood is that even a ruling next spring in favor of the detained men would not necessarily result in immediate freedom for any of them. Unless the Bush administration acts to close Guantanamo, the fate of the prison and its inmates may rest with the next president.

Two options were before the high court Wednesday:

One was to treat Guantanamo as a military matter and to defer to the Pentagon to decide who will be held there and for how long.

The second option was to treat the detainees as U.S. prisoners, not enemy fighters. Under the Constitution and the traditions of American law, those who are held by the government have the right to go before a judge and plead their innocence.

The justices appeared to be split, with four leaning in favor of the Bush administration and the Pentagon, and four in favor of allowing the detainees their day in court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy appeared to favor a middle course -- one that would require the military to give full and fair hearings to the detainees.

In several questions, Kennedy probed whether the high court could simply require the military to adopt new standards and procedures to ensure fair hearings for the detainees, such as giving them attorneys and a right to see the evidence against them.

U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the Bush administration, replied that that would be one option.

But Washington attorney Seth Waxman, the Clinton-era solicitor general who represented the detainees, said: "The time for experimentation is over." Many of the detainees, he said, have been imprisoned for years without being told of the charges against them.

Little is known about those being held at Guantanamo. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld famously called them the "worst of the worst" among terrorists and enemy fighters.

Since then, hundreds of detainees have been sent home. Civil libertarians say that many of the men sent to Guantanamo were neither terrorists nor enemies of the United States.

For example, Fawzi al Odah is a Kuwaiti who was working as a teacher in Afghanistan in 2001 when the U.S. military arrived to fight the Taliban. According to his family, he was taken into custody by Pakistani border guards when he tried to escape and was turned over to U.S. authorities who were paying bounties for Arab men. He has been held at Guantanamo since early in 2002, and his case was one of two before the court Wednesday.

Waxman represented six Algerians who were arrested in Bosnia as possible terrorism suspects. They were freed by Bosnian judges who said there was no evidence against them. But U.S. agents took them into custody and sent them to Guantanamo.

In the past, Kennedy has joined the court's liberal bloc to reject the administration's go-it-alone approach toward Guantanamo. But he has not gone so far as to say the detainees have a right to have their individual cases heard by federal judges.

Through most of Wednesday's argument, Kennedy sat silently while the attorneys and justices engaged in a historical dispute over whether the king of England exercised control over his subjects who were not English by birth and did not live in Britain. The U.S. Constitution's habeas corpus protection, which gives prisoners a right to plead for their freedom in court, came from English law. So the question was whether this habeas right protects only American citizens within the United States, or instead extends to all people held by U.S. authorities in areas under U.S. control.

The Guantanamo detainees are not American citizens, but the U.S. naval base is on Cuban land that has been leased in perpetuity by the United States.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. appeared to agree that the prisoners at Guantanamo had no constitutional right to take their pleas to court.

"Do we have a single case in the 220 years of our country or, for that matter, in the five centuries of the English empire, in which habeas was granted to an alien?" asked Scalia.

Waxman's argument that the habeas corpus protection did apply found favor with Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Twice before, they had voted in favor of rights for the detainees.

"We have passed that point, haven't we?" Souter said pointedly to Clement. The "we" in Souter's question presumably included Kennedy, because he agreed in 2004 that the right to habeas corpus extended to Guantanamo.

After that ruling, the Pentagon agreed to give military hearings to the detainees. These Combatant Status Review Tribunals bring the detainee before three military judges who check to see if there is some evidence that justifies holding the individual. The answer is nearly always yes. The evidence may involve nothing more than a memo describing how the individual was taken into custody.

This evidence would not likely stand up in a federal court hearing. But last year, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a law saying that no judge or justice may hear a writ of habeas corpus from an "alien" who is "detained as enemy combatant."

While that measure seemed to close the courthouse door to the detainees, it also said the U.S. court of appeals in Washington may review the fairness of a Guantanamo tribunal's decision.

Kennedy saw an opening there. "The court of appeals does have the right to determine whether . . . the Constitution and laws of the United States are applicable" to the military hearings at Guantanamo, he told Clement.

The justices will meet Friday behind closed doors to discuss the Guantanamo cases and to cast their votes. It is likely to take many months for a majority to write an opinion, and there will almost surely be a strong dissent, regardless of what is decided. A ruling could be announced in May or June.

david.savage@latimes.com

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[JMS]

here is one more which I think is interesting..

No Quick Resolution To Guantanamo Detainee Cases (Biskupic, USAT)

Thursday, December 6, 2007; 8A

USA Today

By Joan Biskupic

WASHINGTON - During Wednesday's Supreme Court arguments over Guantanamo detainee rights, various justices emphasized that the prisoners have been held for six years with little opportunity for a hearing.

"They say they have been unlawfully detained for six years," Justice John Paul Stevens observed to U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who defended the military's processes. "And isn't that delay relevant to the question (of) whether they have been provided such a wonderful set of procedures?"

Yet, by the end of the hearing, it seemed clear that disputes over the U.S. naval base, a prison for terrorism suspects since the 9/11 attacks, would not end soon.

A majority of the justices appeared poised to reverse a lower court's decision that the Guantanamo prisoners cannot challenge their confinement in U.S. courts. It was not evident how quickly any resolution of the detainee cases would come and under what procedures, whether set by the military or by federal judges.

On questions of safeguarding detainees' rights, even in terms of how quickly a hearing should occur, consensus among the justices seemed elusive.

For years, the court, the Bush administration and Congress have engaged in a series of moves to control the foreign prisoners at Guantanamo. In this round, two questions surfaced: Do the foreign detainees have a right to challenge their confinement through a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. courts? If they do have such a right, is the current military review process an adequate substitute for a habeas hearing?

For centuries in the Anglo-American tradition, prisoners sought a writ of habeas corpus to make the case they were unlawfully confined. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled this year that a law passed by Congress in 2006, the Military Commissions Act, bars Guantanamo detainees from getting into court on such claims.

During 80 minutes of contentious arguments, a majority of justices appeared ready to outright reverse the D.C. Circuit: Stevens and Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The second question, with more practical implications, did not seem easily answered. Clement asserted that combatant-status reviews at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, base, which are being scrutinized separately by the D.C. Circuit, offer detainees sufficient chance to be heard.

"This is a remarkable liberalization of the writ, not some retrenchment or suspension of the writ," Clement said.

The lawyer for detainees, Seth Waxman, says the military process cannot replace a hearing before a neutral judge.

Waxman noted that the military reviews do not provide detainees with lawyers or allow them to know all the possible evidence against them. He said the 37 men he represents had been locked up for nearly six years without any "meaningful notice" of the charges or a fair hearing.

The Supreme Court may not decide the contours of a fair hearing in this round.

Ginsburg noted that the D.C. Circuit never assessed whether the military method was sufficient because the appeals court "ruled that there was no access to habeas, end of case." Ginsburg said the dispute might properly be returned to the D.C. Circuit to now determine whether the military processes are sufficient.

Waxman encouraged the court to make its own assessment.

Kennedy, who has been a key vote in cases on detainee rights, suggested he was open to the government showing that the military alternative, with reviews by the D.C. Circuit, could work.

Kennedy premised his questions on the idea that the detainees would win on their claim that they have a basic right to a habeas hearing.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia seemed most sympathetic to administration arguments that the detainees should not be able to get into federal court.

"We had 400,000 German prisoners in this country during World War II," Scalia said. "Not a single habeas petition (was) filed."

Just to answer Scalia on that last point... German's in WWII were granted POW status, which is a legal status recognized by the constitution and international treaties. The folks in Guantanamo are not POW's, are not Criminals... The question is can the governent ( Executive and Congress ) invent a third catagory which bypasses the constitition and international treaties already signed into law.

[GibbsFactor]

here is one more which I think is interesting..

Just to answer Scalia on that last point... German's in WWII were granted POW status, which is a legal status recognized by the constitution and international treaties. The folks in Guantanamo are not POW's, are not Criminals... The question is can the governent ( Executive and Congress ) invent a third catagory which bypasses the constitition and international treaties already signed into law.

The argument is that they are not fighting for their country. They are however instigating war and as such should be treated as foreign combatants. Domestically, traitors.

The problem we face is that we are after a rogue sect with no national alliance. Information is much harder to come by as there is no central geographical area to focus on.

I have mixed emotions on terrorists so that's all I'll say about this.

[Kilmer17]

I doubt they issue an actual opinion on the case. More likely they will punt and send it back down without opinion. If they DO issue a decision, it's whatever Kennedy decides. My guess is some milquetoast idea that essentially makes them POWs.

[JMS]

The argument is that they are not fighting for their country. They are however instigating war and as such should be treated as foreign combatants. Domestically, traitors.

The problem we face is that we are after a rogue sect with no national alliance. Information is much harder to come by as there is no central geographical area to focus on.

I have mixed emotions on terrorists so that's all I'll say about this.

So that's an argument for the government deciding unilaterally with no indepenent oversight to just ware house people indefinitely. I think criminal, POW are sufficiently broad catagories to classify these folks under.

I don't think we should descend into where Banana republics go, and just jail anybody foreigner who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Just chuck our legal system because we've been told it will make us safer...

I'm not torn on this at all. It's been six years and we've released thousands of these guys. It just doesn't hold any water that the people who end up in Guantanamo are the worst of the worst. If we know that... show a court and convict them of 2000 murders on 911. If you don't have evidence linking them to any criminal behavior, release them.

[JMS]

I doubt they issue an actual opinion on the case. More likely they will punt and send it back down without opinion. If they DO issue a decision, it's whatever Kennedy decides. My guess is some milquetoast idea that essentially makes them POWs.

The problem with classifying them as POW's is that the legal status of POW requires certain level of treatment, and oversight by independent international organizations like the Red Cross. No more water boarding, No more exposure to extreme temporatures. No more naked pyramids, or dogs biting them as they're chained to doors. The POW option is almost as problematic as the Criminal Option. At least with the POW option you don't have to show the evidence against them.

[GibbsFactor]

So that's an argument for the government deciding unilaterally with no indepenent oversight to just ware house people indefinitely. I think criminal, POW are sufficiently broad catagories to classify these folks under.

I don't think we should descend into where Banana republics go, and just jail anybody foreigner who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Just chuck our legal system because we've been told it will make us safer...

I'm not torn on this at all. It's been six years and we've released thousands of these guys. It just doesn't hold any water that the people who end up in Guantanamo are the worst of the worst. If we know that... show a court and convict them of 2000 murders on 911. If you don't have evidence linking them to any criminal behavior, release them.

Just last week the tireless pro-bono work of a friend of mine let two detainees go home. There truly are people in GITMO that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's now a matter of who that is and what to do with those that remain.

[JMS]

Just last week the tireless pro-bono work of a friend of mine let two detainees go home. There truly are people in GITMO that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's now a matter of who that is and what to do with those that remain.

When Abu Grab hit we were told that the people who ended up there were among the worst of the foreign fighters. Then we find out from the commander of the camp that folks ended up there for crimes like breaking curfew, or walking down the wrong street and being proximal to a military sweep. The military responded to the Abu Grab scandal by releasing like 98% of the prisoners who were held there.

The question before us is. Who is the best organization to hear these peoples cases. The military tribunals ( not military courts) which allow torture evidence, secrete evidence, and who are not independnet from those prosecuting? The prosecutors, prison keepers, and judges all working for the Administration. Or civilian courts with no ax to grind either way?

[Kilmer17]

The problem with classifying them as POW's is that the legal status of POW requires certain level of treatment, and oversight by independent international organizations like the Red Cross. No more water boarding, No more exposure to extreme temporatures. No more naked pyramids, or dogs biting them as they're chained to doors. The POW option is almost as problematic as the Criminal Option. At least with the POW option you don't have to show the evidence against them.

Isnt the Red Cross already monitoring Gitmo?

[Predicto]

Seems to me that in any civilized country, if the government puts you in prison, no matter who you are (or they say you are), you have to at least be told why you are being held, and be able to try to show a court that a mistake was made, and you have to be allowed to do that within some reasonable period of time. Anything else is Orwellian.

Who the court is, and what exact powers it has, are less important to me.

[JMS]

Isnt the Red Cross already monitoring Gitmo?

Yes and no. The Administration originally denied the Red Cross access. Then The administration said the Red Cross could visit a few of the detainee's but not see where they were kept and not speak specifically on how they were being treated. To that the Red Cross balked and refused the access on those conditions. Finally the administration and the Red Cross have worked out a deal. The administration gives the Red Cross limited acess to some prisoners, and the Red Cross is free to report candidly on those prisoners they have been granted access too.

To this day the Administration has not given a list of all Prisoners/detainee's which it is holding or has held. Nor has the administraion publically denied reports that Guantanamo is only one camp in a group of several camps where they hold prisoners. The Red cross has not visited any of the other camps reportedly run by the Adminstration.

[JMS]

Seems to me that in any civilized country, if the government puts you in prison, no matter who you are (or they say you are), you have to at least be told why you are being held, and be able to try to show a court that a mistake was made, and you have to be allowed to do that within some reasonable period of time. Anything else is Orwellian.

Who the court is, and what exact powers it has, are less important to me.

The reason why the "court" is important is because with the definition of court comes the proceedures to be followed. Like secret evidence.. Like testomony given under the influence of torture... Like being allowed councel to explain what is going on and represent you during the process.. ( remember most of these guys don't even speak english )...

The supreme court ruled that the tribunals that the administration employed to get around their previous ruling in Hamden vs Rumsfeld, were not suffient.. The court gave the administration two outs.

(1) use military courts which have well understood proceedures.

(2) go back to congress and get clarification on the tribunals.

The administration went back to congress and that's what is being challenged today and yesterday in the supreme court. The use of these tribunals rather than courts.

[chomerics]

We are no longer the shining light from which other nations would like to emulate, and this is a perfect reason why. As a civilized nation, which founded our government on fairness and compromise, acts such as this are completely outside the realm of what we were supposedly about. It has tarnished our reputation as standing on the side of good, and has instead alienated our traditional supporters into detractors.

Why is it so hard to see this, this should be as black and white as if there ever was an issue as such. Treat them as POW's that is what they are, they are Prisoners of War. Yes, some people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there is a reason people are given POW status, it is so OUR soldiers are treated the same way in return. It is how a civilized nation acts in an uncivilized war and world. We should remove the veil of secrecy, and let the world know what we did, and why we did it. The people who are deemed responsible for this should be held accountable.

How would you like it if your son/daughter was taken to gitmo? What would you think as an individual? How would you like to know that your child is taken without cause, or threat, and there is no sign of release for them? How would you feel?

As for the detractors who say "Well, if it stops another 9-11 from happening, then it is worth it". They are sorely mistaken. It is never worth sacrificing your core fundamental values of truth and justice you have held so high, in order to gain feigned security. As the often mistaken Franklin quote said, "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserves neither"

It is so true in this instance. . .