Justice? What's That?

Yesterday it appeared that the horror story that has been the lives of 17 Chinese Uighurs who have been detained at Guantanamo for years would be coming to a merciful end.

A federal judge yesterday ordered a small band of Chinese Muslims being held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison released into the United States by Friday, rejecting the Bush administration's contention that it could detain them indefinitely without cause.

It was the first time a U.S. judge has ordered the release of a Guantanamo Bay detainee, and the first time a foreign national held at the facility in Cuba has been ordered transferred to the United States.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina issued his ruling in dramatic fashion from the bench in a packed courtroom, saying he was ordering the release of 17

Uighurs because the government provided no proof that they were enemy combatants or security risks. Under the order, the men will live with Uighur families in the Washington area until a more permanent situation can be found.

"Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause, the government's continued detention of the [detainees] is unlawful," Urbina said. "Because separation-of-powers concerns do not trump the very principle upon which this nation was founded -- the unalienable right to liberty -- the court orders the government to release the [men] into the United States."

The courts have stepped in where Congress has feared to tread and asserted the primacy of the Constitution and the rule of law on numerous occasions during the Bush regime, but this is the most prime example. These Uighurs, who have never been proven to have done anything wrong and who were dismissed as threats to national security many years ago, existed in this limbo space, unable to return to China for fear of torture, unable to stay at Guantanamo for reasons of illegal detention. The presiding judge finally said "Enough!" and ordered them free.

But the DoJ isn't giving up.

“Following today’s ruling, the government moved to stay the decision to enable the government to consider its appeal options and to consider how such a release might be effected. The court denied the motion, and ordered the government to bring the 17 Uighurs from Guantanamo Bay to the court in Washington, D.C., by Friday, October 10. The court also set a hearing for Thursday, October 16, to determine the conditions of release and ordered that an official of the Department of Homeland Security be present. During the time between the presentment of the Uighurs on October 10 and the hearing on October 16, the court ordered that the government have no supervision or oversight of the released individuals.

“In response to today’s ruling, we are filing an emergency motion for stay pending appeal tonight with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.”

All these people care about is covering their tracks. They don't want these people in civil society because of liability, and because of the moral stain which will finally be available for all to see. Today we learn that the unlawful torture tactics practiced at Guantanamo Bay were also practiced on American soil. The ostensible point of Guantanamo, to be a lawless offshore facility not subject to the rules of the United States, has become ridiculous. Torture has crept onto the homeland. The law has been discarded.

"The application of Guantánamo protocols on U.S. soil is incredibly significant and indicates how far the administration has gone in terms of suspending the law," said Jonathan Hafetz, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "The Bush administration has long argued that detainees held in Guantánamo are not entitled to any constitutional protections – an argument the Supreme Court has recently rejected. But this is not even Guantánamo – we are talking about creating prisons beyond the law right here in America."

The documents clearly show that the standard operating procedure developed for Guantánamo Bay governed every aspect of detentions at the two bases inside the United States. Though Navy personnel tried several times to improve the harsh conditions under which Hamdi, Padilla and al-Marri were detained, senior Defense Department officials repeatedly denied the requests.

Padilla and al-Marri have reported being subjected to many of the brutal interrogation techniques used at Guantánamo Bay that included sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, prolonged isolation, extreme sensory deprivation, and threats of violence and death. That regime, it now appears, was the product of an effort to extend "Guantánamo rules" to prisons inside the United States.

We are all wrapped up in this, implicated in this bloodletting. Sadly, the Constitution, the rule of law, torture - these things are out of bounds in our political debate. The Congress has been asleep as the executive grabbed massive powers, the power to detain anyone, surveil on anyone, and torture, yes, anyone. The Uiguhrs should be set free. But more than that, there should be at least 17 officials put in their place.