Administration rethinks prosecution strategy for terrorism suspects

[UpInArms]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/7415800.htm

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is softening its hard-line strategy for prosecuting those detained in the war on terror following increased pressure from the courts, allies abroad and even former top Justice Department officials.

Within a span of 48 hours this week, the government gave two terror suspects access to lawyers, reversing its long-held stance that the enemy combatants were beyond the court's reach.

Legal experts attribute the sudden shift to the growing willingness of judges to give the administration's tactics a hard look.

Already there have been rulings in lower federal courts that have gone against the government, notably in the case of al-Qaida loyalist Zacarias Moussaoui and alleged dirty-bomb plotter Jose Padilla. The liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week struck down a portion of a widely used 1996 antiterrorism law.

...more...

not a terrible news story with the exception of the editorializing regarding the usage of the word "liberal" :mad:

anything that does not go to the freakin' far right is now "liberal" - it is now "liberal" to support the US Constitution and Bill of Rights :mad:

Oh well - guess that makes me a "liberal" :D

[drfemoe]

1. It's a start

the *u*h admin is trying to stop SCOTUS. There was a lot of coverage this week, and much is still up in the air.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/03/1070351658916.html
Pentagon fires Cuba prisoners' lawyers
December 4, 2003

A team of military lawyers recruited to defend alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay was dismissed by the Pentagon after some of its members rebelled against the way the trials have been designed.

And some members of the new legal defence team remain deeply unhappy with the trials - known as "military commissions" - believing them to be slanted towards the prosecution and an affront to modern US military justice.

Of the more than 600 detainees at the US prison camp at Guantanamo, Cuba, none has been charged with any crime, and none has had access to a lawyer, although some have been in captivity of one kind or another for two years.

Washington has repeatedly promised that at least some of the prisoners will be charged and tried by military commissions, an arcane form of tribunal based on long-disused models from the 1940s.
... con't