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"Un-American Indefinite Detention On Trial"
Supreme Court hears Guantanamo cases
At issue: whether to overturn Military Commissions Act passed by Congress
 | A detainee at the detention facility at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. |
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Inside Guantanamo A look at the controversial U.S. detention center in Cuba, home to prisoners accused of having terrorist ties. |
Many of the detainees have been held at the military facility for nearly six years.
"Restore habeas corpus!" the group chanted, referring to the right to court review of the legality of detention, the heart of the argument before the high court.
"We believe these people should be charged or allowed to go home," said Liz Hourican, who says she moved from Scottsdale, Ariz., in March to work with the peace group Code Pink.
The detainee case drew several hundred spectators who lined up in a light snow. About 50 camped out overnight for a chance to get inside to hear the arguments in the third case the Supreme Court has heard since 2004 on the administration's detention program.
The justices ruled against the administration in the two earlier cases.
"We're rooting for our law professor; we hope he wins," said Alex Fumelli, a senior at Georgetown University, whose law professor, Seth Waxman, is arguing the case for the detainees.
Overruling Congress
Lawyers for the foreign detainees contend the courts must step in to rein in the White House and Congress, which changed the law to keep the detainee cases out of U.S. courts after earlier Supreme Court rulings. The most recent legislation, last year's Military Commissions Act, strips federal courts of their ability to hear detainee cases.
Waxman, the top Supreme Court lawyer in the Clinton administration, said that "after six years of imprisonment without meaningful review, it is time for a court to decide the legality of" their confinement, Waxman said.
Solicitor General Paul Clement, representing the administration, said foreigners captured and held outside the United States "have no constitutional rights to petition our courts for a writ of habeas corpus," a judicial determination of the legality of detention.
Kennedy pivotal
The case could turn on whether the court decides that Guantanamo is essentially U.S. soil, which would make the case for detainee rights stronger. Justice Anthony Kennedy, widely considered a pivotal vote in this case, said as much in a concurring opinion in Rasul v. Bush, the 2004 case that was the court's first foray into the administration's detention policies.
"Guantanamo Bay is in every practical respect a United States territory," Kennedy said in the earlier ruling.
The administration also argues that panels of military officers that review the detainees' status as enemy combatants are adequate, even if the Supreme Court decides they have the right to contest their confinement.
The justices, however, decided to review the issue in June, after having turned down the detainees' appeal in April. They provided no explanation, but their action followed a declaration from a military officer who criticized Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
The United States has no plans to put most of those held at Guantanamo on trial. Just three detainees face charges under the Military Commissions Act and the military has said it could prosecute as many as 80.
The consolidated cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22113362/
Military Commissions Act of 2006
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 2600 (Oct. 17, 2006), enacting Chapter 47A of title 10 of the United States Code, is an Act of Congress (Senate Bill 3930[1]) signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. Drafted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld[2], the Act's stated purpose is to "facilitate bringing to justice terrorists and other unlawful enemy combatants through full and fair trials by military commissions, and for other purposes."[3] The bill limits the right of habeas corpus and has been suggested to be unconstitutional.
The Act also contains provisions (often referred to as the "habeas provisions") removing access to the courts for any alien detained by the United States government who is determined to be an enemy combatant, or who is 'awaiting determination' regarding enemy combatant status. This allows the United States government to detain such aliens indefinitely without prosecuting them in any manner.
These provisions are as follows:[6](e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination. (2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
The bill passed the Senate, 65-34, on September 28, 2006.[10]The bill passed in the House, 250-170-12, on September 29, 2006.[11]Bush signed the bill into law on October 17, 2006. Several amendments were proposed before final passage of the bill by the Senate; all were defeated. Among them were an amendment by Robert Byrd which would have added a sunset provision after five years, an amendment by Ted Kennedy which would have outlawed specific interrogation techniques including waterboarding (SA.5088[12]), and an amendment by Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) preserving habeas corpus. Specter's amendment was rejected by a vote of 51-48. Specter voted for the bill despite the defeat of his amendment. The bill was finally passed by the House on September 29, 2006 and presented to the President for signing on October 10, 2006[13].
Any way you "slice it or dice it" indefinite detention of anyone, anywhere who have not been charged with any crime is as un-American as "blood pie". If any Guantanamo detainees were apprehended in the act of firing upon American soldiers then by now they should have been tried and sentenced. If after six years the only thing these detainees are guilty of is resistance to their perceived unjust detention, then they should be released. (If they weren't terrorists before their "capture" and detention, they probably will be terrorists if they are released, but that's what the Bush Administration has been doing anyway in it's "war on terror", creating terrorists.) Let us pray the Supreme Court will uphold "the American Way" in the treatment and legal rights of the Guantanamo detainees.
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