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High court slams Bush on terror suspects

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the war on terrorism does not give the government a "blank check" to hold a U.S. citizen and foreign-born terror suspects in legal limbo, a forceful denunciation of Bush administration tactics since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ruling in two cases, the high court refused to endorse a central claim of the White House: that the government has authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny access to courts or lawyers while interrogating them.
A state of war "is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the most significant case of the day, a ruling that gives American-born detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi the right to fight his detention in a federal court. Separately, the court said that nearly 600 men from 42 countries held at a Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can use American courts to contest their treatment.

Pentagon names tribunal for Hicks trial

The Pentagon has named the officers who will decide the fate of David Hicks and two other Guantanamo prisoners charged by the United States in the first US military tribunals since World War II.
Earlier this month, Hicks, a convert to Islam accused of joining Al Qaeda, was charged with three counts: conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy.
Human rights groups have condemned the trial process established for the commissions, saying the rules favour the prosecution, undercut the defence and do not permit independent judicial review.