The Los Angeles Times reports that the federal government may soon be moving hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the U.S. mainland in response to the Supreme Court ruling that such prisoners must have access to the judicial system. Makes me wonder: was that whole camp intentionally set up so the administration could claim it was outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts?
At any rate, here’s another shocking development; you may want to sit down for this. Apparently the administration didn’t have a plan to allow the detainees to have a hearing:
“They didn’t really have a specific plan for what to do, case by case, if we lost,” a senior Department of Defense official said on condition of anonymity. “The Justice Department didn’t have a plan. State didn’t have a plan. This wasn’t a unilateral mistake on Department of Defense’s part. It’s astounding to me that these cases have been pending for so long and nobody came up with a contingency plan.”
I know, I know. They’ve only been holding these people for two and a half years. And with the “war on terror” to fight a government can’t be troubled with petty hearings and things of that nature.