As it turns out, these detainees were during humanitarian work in Afghanistan when they were turned in to U.S. authorities by Afghan warlords seeking the bounty offered by the U.S. for “terrorists.”
According to the Obama Justice Department then, a) habeas corpus was not a foundation of Anglo-American law before the June 2008 Supreme Court Boumediene decision because if it had been then they wouldn’t be arguing now that these defendants are not and were not entitled to that right, and b) government officials who were engaged in beatings, death threats, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, forced nakedness, interrogations at gun point, religious and racial harassment, et al, were not aware that these acts were illegal until told so by the Supreme Court.
Candidate Obama thinks that habeas corpus is a foundational principle for our law but President Obama apparently has rethought that terribly rash statement and now holds that habeas corpus has only been around for less than a year and not since the Magna Carta of nearly nine hundred years ago.
This is consistent – Obama’s administration has been nothing if not consistent in their deeds and in their court filings (as opposed to their public statements before Congress or before the nation) – with Obama’s stance on Bagram: prisoners there have no habeas corpus rights and Gitmo detainees “ultimately” have a right to habeas corpus, but only (now with this latest shoe being dropped by the Obama administration) if they were unjustly detained after June 2008.
As I wrote in January 2008:
“Imagine that you and a police officer have both just seen a cold-blooded murderer and sadist torturing and then killing people in plain daylight. The cop turns to you - instead of going after the murderer - and says: ‘If you vote for me to become the police chief I will stop this murderer from doing what he is doing.’
“He promises you change and the end to murderous rampages.
“You scream at him, ‘Why aren't you doing something RIGHT NOW about that murderer?!’
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