U.S.(Bush Administration) : 'No legal rights' for detainees

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is taking a hard line on whether prisoners at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to lawyers to help them file lawsuits challenging their detentions.

In court papers filed during the past two weeks, the Justice Department has insisted that the detainees have "no legal rights," especially the right to counsel. ..

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the president's war powers are not "a blank check." The court said that a U.S. citizen held in a Navy brig in South Carolina and nearly 600 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives held in Cuba have a right to contest their detentions.

Justice Department lawyers accuse the detainees' attorneys of stretching the Supreme Court's ruling "way out of proportion." They say the Supreme Court decided only whether federal courts have authority to review challenges by the detainees and did not address whether captives have a right to lawyers.

Attorneys for the detainees accuse the administration of doing an end-run around the Supreme Court. "One would never know that this case had just been to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the government made — and lost — virtually the same arguments it now recycles here," they wrote. ...


Amnesty International

to enforce the SC decision. Maybe that would get Junior to STFU for two minutes.

How can they get away with this?

Oh right, the magic (R).

grrr...

it is this blatant disdain for the rule of law that eats @ me. The BFEE/neocons relied on the EVERYONE backing down after 12/12/00 - cuz it was THE Supreme Court and we have all been taught since our first social studies class that the Supremes have the FINAL word. They relied on no one storming the bastille cuz the supremes had spoken. I find it curiouser and curiouser that none of these criminals R attorneys. Unlike past presidents and their cabinets there is a dearth of attorneys in this administration.

They have set a pace and R on track 4 full blown anarchy.