UNDER CIVIL AUTHORITY :

'Enemy Combatant' Loses Right to Lawyer, Feds Say (NY Daily News, 6/20/02)

The government argued yesterday in a legal filing that U.S. citizens who are declared enemy combatants have no right to an attorney and that federal courts have no right to interfere.

The Justice Department is appealing a ruling by a federal judge in Norfolk, Va., allowing Yaser Esam Hamdi — a U.S.-born Saudi suspected of being a Taliban member — to meet with a public defender.

"There is not right under the laws and customs of war for an enemy combatant to meet with counsel concerning his detention," the Justice Department wrote in a 46-page document filed yesterday.

The filing goes on to say, "The court may not second-guess the military's enemy combatant determination."

"This is really an astounding assertion of authority," David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, told The Washington Post.

So, "a reader", if you're looking in, Stuart Taylor seems to have had good info on this one. I'm fairly pro-military, but I don't see much harm in allowing a U.S. citizen to get a ruling on whether he's an actual belligerent. I'd not afford non-citizens the same luxury. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 20, 2002 2:15 PM