Habeas Corpus

The Supreme Court heard arguments in two war-on-terrorism cases Tuesday -- one that tests whether American civilians can seek the help of American courts if they are held in Iraq, and the other to determine whether the man who plotted to bomb Los Angeles International Airport will serve his full 22-year prison term. In both cases, the justices sounded as though they would rule on the side of the Bush administration. The first case, Munaf vs.

What does the Supreme Court decision recognizing Guantanamo detainees' habeas corpus rights mean for the detainees? About 270 men are at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southern Cuba -- 19 already charged with war crimes and 250 or so being held without charges, many for more than six years. Habeas corpus is a constitutionally guaranteed right to challenge detention, but the Pentagon has denied it to the terrorism suspects at Guantanamo.

As the Bush administration attempts to stabilize the nation's economy, we are witness to the final chapter of a period of perverse and dishonest leadership that has used its own crises to justify the expansion of its own power. This was a president who came to office on promises of modesty -- who championed a "humble nation," scorned nation building and promised a more limited role for government in the lives of its citizens.

The American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the U.S. government Wednesday for the release of a U.S. citizen who, the group alleges, has been under FBI scrutiny for years and has been imprisoned without charge in the United Arab Emirates for three months. Naji Hamdan, 42, a former Hawthorne resident, was arrested Aug. 29 by Emirates state police at the request of the U.S. government, effectively putting Hamdan in U.S.

President-elect Barack Obama's vow to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cheered human rights organizations and civil libertarians, but could force the new administration to consider a step those groups would abhor. Some Obama advisors predict that his administration may have to decide whether to ask Congress to pass legislation allowing a number of detainees to be held indefinitely without trial.

In the Bush administration's first bow to a court directive to release prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Department of Defense flew three Algerians to their adopted homeland of Bosnia-Herzegovina on Tuesday. The Pentagon acknowledged in a tersely worded announcement that the release was in reaction to a federal judge's order last month to free five Algerians seized in Bosnia in 2001. The men were suspected of participating in a plot to bomb the U.S.

Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales provided laugh lines for comedians and fodder for outraged bloggers when he told senators recently that the Constitution does not specifically grant individuals the right to habeas corpus. The Constitution appears to contradict him on that historic doctrine, which says those taken into custody have the right to plead their innocence before a judge.

IN UPHOLDING A LAW that denies detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base the ancient right of prisoners to challenge their confinement in court, a federal appeals court has presented the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress with a challenge. Does it have the fortitude to undo an injustice perpetrated by the Republican-controlled 109th?

In a victory for the White House, a U.S. appeals court Tuesday threw out the legal claims brought on behalf of the hundreds of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and ruled that they did not have a right to plead their innocence in an American court. In a 2-1 decision, the judges said the Constitution did not extend the right of habeas corpus to noncitizens held outside the sovereign territory of this country. "Cuba -- not the United States -- has sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay," Judge A.

'GUANTANAMO," IN popular parlance, refers both to the U.S. military prison on land leased from Cuba and the legal process (such as it is) made available to the 395 suspected terrorists and collaborators imprisoned there. In both senses, Guantanamo is an embarrassment to the United States. President Bush, who once suggested that he wanted to close Guantanamo, shows no signs of doing so anytime soon, though Secretary of Defense Robert M.