Alleged Enemy Combatants Stuck Indefinitely

Here's a disturbing development of US Policy on enemy combatants. Since the law (and last year's Supreme Court ruling) allows enemy combatants to challenge their detention, those in power have seen fit to rewrite the law.

The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts.

The vote, 49 to 42, on an amendment to a military budget bill by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, comes at a time of intense debate over the government's treatment of prisoners in American custody worldwide, and just days after the Senate passed a measure by Senator John McCain banning abusive treatment of them.

If approved in its current form by both the Senate and the House, which has not yet considered the measure but where passage is considered likely, the law would nullify a June 2004 Supreme Court opinion that detainees at Guantánamo Bay had a right to challenge their detentions in court.

While it may help us to more easily sleep at night thinking all the people held are guilty of something, wouldn't it be best if they were able to get fair trials? Check this link to Amnesty International on the story of one Canadian being detained at Guantanamo Bay.