Jonathan Hafetz

For six years the Bush administration has denied Gitmo detainees the right to habeas corpus. It is time for the Court to resolve once and for all that they deserve their day in court.

The Senate’s retreat from its initial demand that now-Attorney General Michael Mukasey denounce waterboarding is detrimental to the country’s moral fabric.

Focusing on the troubled commissions only distracts observers from confronting the truth about Guantanamo Bay: that the vast majority of its detainees will never face a trial of any kind.

Last week, Congress passed legislation giving the president a blank check to wage his “war on terror.” The new law, known as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), is rife with problems. It gives the president drag-net detention power, sets up a second-class system of military justice for non-citizens, and weakens the Geneva Convention’s […]

Congress returns from recess this month to confront fundamental questions presented by the president’s five-year long global “war on terrorism.” On the table is nothing less than the future scope of presidential power, with battles looming over military trials, detainee treatment, and domestic surveillance. In the past several months, courts have dealt the administration a […]

Since September 11, the president has consistently ignored the law in the name of national security. While courts have resisted his claims of unbridled executive power, Congress has largely stood on the sidelines. But that could change soon, with a major legislative fight taking shape on military trials and detentions. If Congress ends up blessing […]

Certainly nobody can dispute that the Supreme Court handed the president a significant defeat last month, invalidating his jerry-rigged system for trying suspected terrorists of war crimes at Guantanamo and rebuffing his claims of unbridled executive power. If the administration wants to conduct military trials, the Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, it must follow […]