Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Obama Administration Defends Bagram Detention:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_02_22-2009_02_28.shtml#1235318004
The NYT [1]reports:
In a two-sentence filing late Friday, the Justice Department said
that the new administration had reviewed its position in a case
brought by prisoners at the United States Air Force base at Bagram,
just north of the Afghan capital. The Obama team determined that
the Bush policy was correct: such prisoners cannot sue for their
release.
�Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its
previously articulated position,� wrote Michael F. Hertz, acting
assistant attorney general. . . .
Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor, said it was too early to
tell what the Obama administration would end up doing with the
detainees at Bagram. He said some observers believed that the Obama
team would end up making a major change in policy but simply needed
more time to come up with it, while others believed that the
administration had decided �to err on the side of doing things more
like the Bush administration did, as opposed to really rethinking
and reorienting everything� about the detention policies it
inherited because it had too many other problems to deal with.
�It may take some time before we see exactly what is going on �
whether this is just a transitory policy or whether this is really
their policy: �No to Guantánamo, but we can just create
Guantánamo in some other place,� � Mr. Balkin said.
References
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/washington/22bagram.html
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
