IN THE NEWS
Good news: Enough daylight has shone into Guantanamo Bay for a federal judge to rule that two prisoners have been held illegally. Bad news: Given the legal black hole that is Guantanamo Bay, the judge doesn't see any action the US government is compelled to take--including just setting the two men free and flying them back to Pakistan.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not surprised that the law is frayed and rent around Guantanamo Bay. The people in charge of the overt and covert detention facilities did not seem at all concerned what to do about people who proved to be something other than a 100% verifiable "enemy combatant." But didn't the Supreme Court place the burden squarely on the Defense Department? The Court's decision--which basically said, If you can't give them an immediate and fair trial, release them-- certainly implied that the DoD had responsibility to do something other than shrug.
[Thanks to ahistoricality for the original link to this story.]
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