On September 22, in the District Court in Washington D.C., Judge Reggie B. Walton denied the habeas corpus petition of Tawfiq al-Bihani, consigning him to indefinite detention in Guantánamo, on an apparently legal basis, despite the fact that there is no evidence that he ever took up arms against anyone, or had any contact with anyone involved in preparing, facilitating or supporting acts of international terrorism. Judge Walton also ignored that despite being, at most, a lowly foot soldier, al-Bihani was held in a variety of secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan before his transfer to Guantánamo, where he was subjected to torture.

Maureen Dowd,echoing Press Secretary Gibbs, ridicules Obama base as beret wearing, goateed anarchists.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. released a forceful 36-page opinion in the case of a Guantanamo detainee that would ordinarily be shocking. Sadly, such opinions are now so common that, except for one news story and a few particularly alert bloggers, they get barely a mention in the news.

For months now, certain commentators and legislators have been arguing that Congress needs to pass a new law authorizing the indefinite detention without charge or trial of suspected terrorists and their supporters.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday morning issued a stunning ruling: that the United States government may seize suspected terrorists outside the United States, send them to the U.S.-run Bagram detention center in Afghanistan, and thereby deprive them of the right to challenge their detention in federal court.

The same judge who denied the habeas petition for Yasin Ismail last week, Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. of the U.S. District Court, Washington, DC, approved the petition for a different prisoner, Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, primarily because the evidence against him had been produced by torture. The two tortured “witnesses” against Uthman were presumed al-Qaida members, also held at Guantanamo, Sharqwi Abdu Ali Al-Hajj and Sanad Yislam Ali Al Kazimi. This brings the scorecard to 35 of 48 habeas cases from Guantanamo decided against the government. I don’t know how many of them were due to tortured evidence.

Andy Worthington, who has conscientiously and effectively documented the fates of hundreds of prisoners held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo has posted a “Habeas Corpus Scorecard” at his website. His first entry in the series considers the case of Yasin Qasem Muhammad Ismail, a Yemeni who was captured (or sold to U.S. forces) in Afghanistan in 2001.

The habeas corpus petitions were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The petitions ask that the four men to be given access to lawyers and be allowed to challenge the legality of their detention in court.

Dick Cheney may like to call those interrogations “enhanced,” but in everyday parlance they’re what the DOJ is implicitly acknowledging: torture.

A new UN report notes secret detentions “might reach the threshold of a crime against humanity.” Obama’s OLC braintrusts the Detention Task Force’s recommendation of indefinite detention of some Guantanamo prisoners. These actions make sense in the light of a 55 year old report on CIA covert actions.