U.S. drops plans to limit lawyer Guantanamo visits

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

U.S. drops plans to limit lawyer Guantanamo visits

By James Vicini Fri May 11, 3:24 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Friday it no
longer seeks to limit the number of meetings between Guantanamo prisoners
and their lawyers, a proposal that had been strongly criticized by civil
liberties and legal groups.

Administration attorneys told a U.S. appeals court the Defense Department,
which runs the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, determined the proposed
three-visit limit is "no longer warranted," based on "a current evaluation of
resources and needs."

There have been no restrictions on the number of visits by attorneys with
their clients at Guantanamo but last month Justice Department lawyers
proposed limiting attorneys with existing clients at Guantanamo to just
three visits.

Lawyers for the detainees had opposed the proposal for imposing an
"arbitrary cap" and called it "antithetical to the attorney-client privilege."
Civil liberties and legal groups denounced it for limiting attorney access
to their clients.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070511/pl_nm/guantanamo_lawyers_dc

[nankerphelge]

1. So what...

rights do they have?

[struggle4progress]

2. The Bushistas just want this out of court. They'll wait and reimpose limits.