The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged Enemy Combatant

The Terrorist Next Door

By | 05.20.09 | 12:09 pm

The headline of a just-released Senate Republican Policy Committee document on what to do with Guantanamo Bay detainees:

Meet Your New Neighbor, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad?

There’s actually nothing in the 15-page paper suggesting that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad could be released into American society. There is, however, an exposition of the More…

Federal Judge Narrows Definition of Who Government Can Hold Indefinitely

By | 05.20.09 | 11:29 am

When President Obama relinquished the term “enemy combatant” from the government’s lexicon as a justification for holding prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial, he didn’t give up the power to hold people he deemed were fighting the United States. But the question remained: how does the government decide who those More…

Former ‘Enemy Combatant’ Promised Not to Sue U.S. Government in Exchange for Release

By | 03.31.09 | 1:12 pm

When the news broke last week that the United States had tried to prevent Binyam Mohamed from suing the U.S. government — or even talking about his treatment at the hands of U.S. authorities before they would allow him to return to the United Kingdom — I wondered More…

Still Waiting for a Just Detainee Policy

By | 03.19.09 | 12:50 pm

“Has the Obama administration changed the legal rules for detaining suspects in the war on terrorism,” asked Harvard law professor Noah Feldman in an op-ed in The New York Times today, “or is it continuing in the footsteps of the Bush administration?”

As I wrote when the administration More…

Obama DOJ Withdraws ‘Enemy Combatant’ Definition, But Says It Can Hold Prisoners Indefinitely Anyway

By | 03.13.09 | 4:54 pm

Lawyers and court-watchers have been eagerly waiting to see how the Obama Department of Justice will define an “enemy combatant” — and wondering whether the new administration will continue to insist that the Pentagon has the right to hold people it suspects of assisting al-Qaeda or the Taliban indefinitely without More…

Obama Transfers Al-Marri to Federal Prison–And Moves to Dismiss Supreme Court Appeal

By | 02.27.09 | 4:58 pm

Well, he doesn’t get to go free, but Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri — the last remaining “enemy combatant” who was picked up and held for the past six years without charge on U.S. soil — will finally have the privilege of being transferred to a real federal prison (from a More…

Surprise! Kagan Agrees with the Supreme Court

By | 02.11.09 | 11:44 am

Following up on Spencer’s post, The Los Angeles Times today makes much of the fact that Solicitor General nominee Elena Kagan Tuesday told senators that she believes that “enemy combatants” can be detained without criminal charge or trial.

Well, as much as civil liberties advocates might More…

Conservative Groups Oppose Indefinite Detention of U.S. Resident in U.S. Prison

By | 01.27.09 | 1:48 pm

Turns out that even conservatives can’t stomach the indefinite detention of a lawful U.S. resident, without charge, in an American prison.

In an amicus brief filed today in federal court, the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Rutherford Institute, along with the bipartisan Constitution Project, are urging the Obama administration More…

Will SCOTUS Really Hear the Al-Marri Case? Not so fast…

By | 12.06.08 | 10:57 am

By now you’ve probably heard that the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case of the sole legal U.S. resident detained indefinitely — yes, that means potentially forever — without charges, right here on U.S. soil.  All because President Bush decided on his own authority, that this More…