White House Deals With Detainee Legalities

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is taking the narrowest possible view of legal rights the Supreme Court gave to terrorism detainees while trying to fend off any new court challenges. Ultimately the high court probably will weigh in again, lawyers said.

A trio of Supreme Court rulings in June rejected much of the administration's argument that it had power to detain possible terrorists for as long as necessary without charges or trial or access to the outside world.

Some of what the court said is ambiguous, and the justices did not spell out how the government must comply. The government's response is playing out in several ways, and government lawyers have not yet shown all their cards.

Perhaps most importantly, the administration staked a bold position in federal court that would erase much of what lawyers for foreign-born men held at a Navy prison camp in Cuba thought they had won in the Supreme Court.

"Their position is these people have no rights, which is preposterous ... in the face of very clear decisions from the Supreme Court," said Jeffrey Fogel, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer representing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040820/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terror_detainees

Did the Rehnquist court really imagine they could control these hucksters once they handed them the country?

[struggle4progress]

1. kick for SOBs playing cutesy with the courts

:kick:

[Rose Siding]

2. kick for media that fixates on NotTooSwifts as Bush defies SCOTUS