Jim Downey’s Rants & Raves On Just About Everything: Issues About Iraq, Detention, Rendition & Justice We Need To Attend To
“It’s a sweeping denial of habeas, so that any alien who is detained by the U.S. can be detained forever without any hope of ever getting to a court. That’s just wrong,” said Neal Sonnett, a Miami attorney who chairs the ABA’s Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants.

Although some detainees may be intent on harming the United States or its interests, the Department of Defense’s own records make it clear that “many of the people in Guantanamo Bay are not al-Qaida, not terrorists, and they’re not dangerous,” Sonnett said. “Unless they have an opportunity to contest their detention, there’s no way for their innocence to be established.”