Following closed-door hearings in which the Dept. of Justice presented its full justification for holding the five Algerian men, detained in Bosnia in 2001 and held in Guantanamo Bay for the last seven years, Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington ruled that the government had presented insufficient evidence to continue holding the men. (He did allow them to continue holding one other prisoner about whom the DOJ also presented evidence.)

Included among the men freed was Lakhdar Boumediene, the subject of the landmark case, Boumediene v. Bush, which established their right to habeas corpus proceedings.

The Times also notes, however, that the men aren’t likely to be immediately let go, either; Dept. of Justice lawyers are expected to appeal.

In a statement issued this afternoon, the DOJ said that while it was pleased it was permitted to hold onto one of the detainees, “we are . . . disappointed by, and disagree with, the Court’s decision that we did not carry our burden of proof with respect to the other detainees.”

The DOJ added: “we are promptly reviewing the decision with respect to the other five petitioners. But we also think that this ruling demonstrates the need for Congress to enact procedures that allow these petitions to be adjudicated in a way that is fair to the detainee but that allows the Government to present its case without imperiling national security.”

The Judge in the case, however, Judge Richard Leon, in an unusual statement actually asked the government not to appeal the ruling, saying that, as reported on SCOTUS blog: “seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer to their legal question is enough.”

The DOJ has been working hard in recent weeks to keep the habeas corpus cases filed by hundreds of detainees from moving forward, even though the Supreme Court ruled in the Boumediene case in June that they’re entitled to challenge their detention. On Tuesday, Justice Dept. lawyers filed an opposition to an order by another federal district court judge handling the cases of more than 100 Guantanamo detainees. The judge had ordered the government to turn over the legal and factual basis for holding the men, and all exculpatory evidence.

On Tuesday, the government opposed the judge’s order. In an e-mail sent to lawyers handling the cases last week, the government lawyers had called the court’s order to turn over evidence “legally inappropriate and unworkable.”

When the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, announced yesterday that it had registered more than 1.3 million new voters nationwide so far this year, it was a cause either for celebration or dismay — depending on where you stand.

In theory, of course, voter registration is supposed to be a good thing, and ACORN has long been commended for its ability to effectively appeal to young, poor, working class, elderly and minority voters around the country.

But this set of community organizers is also a favorite target of the Republican Party and, most recently, of Fox News. As the Huffington Post recently reported, Fox has been hammering Obama’s alleged connections with the community-organizing group -– much as if it were charging that he’s consorting with terrorists. (Leave it to Gov. Sarah Palin to make Fox look restrained.)

But ACORN? When did grass-roots organizers trying to increase political participation through voter registration become something political candidates had to distance themselves from?

It all started with the GOP’s accusations that ACORN promotes voter fraud — a charge it’s been making for years but which it’s stepped up this campaign season with a vengeance.

Readers even cited the charges in commenting on my last story, which was about how actual voter fraud -– the kind that affects elections -– doesn’t really exist.

What the voter fraud fear-mongers neglect to mention, however, is that in most cases, the charges against ACORN have not been substantiated. Which means there’s no reason to believe they were ever true.

As we know from the U.S. attorney firing scandal under Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, chief prosecutors are not above pressuring their underlings to go after voter fraud that doesn’t exist.

But the most important reason why the unsubstantiated charges against ACORN are misleading is that even in the few cases where it turned out that people were wrongly registered, there is no evidence that anyone actually turned up on Election Day to vote on their behalf.

A voter registration may be invalid because someone signing up accidentally provided a wrong address or phone number; or because a worker provided false information.

But in the cases cited as evidence of voter fraud by ACORN -– most notably one cited as the worst case of voter fraud in the state of Washington, where seven people were convicted last year –- the prosecutor himself noted that it was a scheme by a few individuals to make money. No one was actually trying to influence the outcome of the election.

It turned out that workers who were paid to register voters had copied names out of phone books rather than going out and doing their jobs of signing up real voters. Of course, none of those people showed up to vote.

Seeking to prevent any more such scandals, ACORN officials told me the organization now has workers personally call each newly-registered voter to double-check that the registration is genuine. That’s a big workload for a non-profit organization run on a shoestring, but it became a necessary effort to fend off the relentless Republican attacks.

Still, it hasn’t stopped them. An announcer on “Fox and Friends” recently described ACORN as having “a long and storied past involving voter fraud across the country, widespread” and noted “Obama’s long-term relationship with the radical group.”

In fact, Obama was one of several lawyers representing a large group of organizations—all siding with the U.S. Dept. of Justice -– who sued the governor of Illinois for failing to follow the federal motor-voter law.

Not surprisingly, Fox, like the GOP operatives attacking ACORN, neglected to tell its audience the rest of the story.