Judge adopts Obama standard for Gitmo detention

A federal judge on Wednesday adopted the Obama administration's standard for continuing to hold terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and signaled he will move quickly to decide whether prisoners can continue to be held under the new rule.
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Obama's Justice Department backed President George W. Bush's stance that the president has the authority to hold the detainees and gave a similar legal standard for doing so. But Obama's administration said it would no longer define the detainees as enemy combatants, the term that Bush used to justify their detention.

The Bush administration argued the government could hold "those individuals who were part of, or supporting, forces engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners and allies." The Obama administration modified that argument to say prisoners can only be detained if their support for al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces" was "substantial."

Walton was critical of the Obama administration for refusing to define what "substantial support" means and added his own interpretation. He said he'll interpret the standard only to include people who were members of the enemy organization's armed forces at the time of their capture.

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