'Enemy Combatant' Loses Right to Lawyer, Feds Say

NY Daily News
6/20/02 - The government argued yesterday in a legal filing that U.S. citizens who
are declared enemy combatants have no right to an attorney and that
federal courts have no right to interfere.

The Justice Department is appealing a ruling by a federal judge in
Norfolk, Va., allowing Yaser Esam Hamdi — a U.S.-born Saudi suspected of
being a Taliban member — to meet with a public defender.

"There is not right under the laws and customs of war for an enemy
combatant to meet with counsel concerning his detention," the Justice
Department wrote in a 46-page document filed yesterday.

The filing goes on to say, "The court may not second-guess the
military's enemy combatant determination."

"This is really an astounding assertion of authority," David Cole, a
Georgetown University law professor, told The Washington Post.

"It's not just that you have no right to a lawyer, it's that you have no
right to even have a hearing," he said. "If that is true, then there is
really no limit to the President's power to label U.S. citizens as bad
people and then have them held in military custody indefinitely."

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