jamezpolley.com

Read­ing the draft Exec­u­tive Order order­ing Guan­tá­namo Bay deten­tion facil­i­ties to be closed, one minor para­graph jumped out at me:

© The indi­vid­u­als cur­rently detained at Guan­tá­namo have the con­sti­tu­tional priv­i­lege of

the writ of habeas cor­pus. Most of those indi­vid­u­als have filed peti­tions for a writ of

habeas cor­pus in Fed­eral court chal­leng­ing the law­ful­ness of their detention.

If that was the entirety of the order, it would be a huge step for­ward for peo­ple still impris­oned there — they’ll be able to force the gov­ern­ment to jus­tify their impris­on­ment, a right that was con­sis­tently denied to David Hicks and the other detainees.

You can read the whole order from a link at the bot­tom of the ACLU’s press release.