Court Tells U.S. to Reveal Data on Detainees at Guantánamo

A federal appeals court ordered the government yesterday to turn over virtually all its information on Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over the government’s reasons for holding the men indefinitely.

The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.

It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration’s detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo, where about 360 men are now being held.

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees.

I don't believe that any American would be against us holding these people if it could be proven that they are indeed terrorists. The problem I have is when the government refuses to provide any evidence to support the claims that they are making. The first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 resulted in the criminal prosecution of those involved. If they have the proof why are they so hesitant to display it? With a government as distrusted as the Bush administration, we need as much information as we can get to determine if we are holding the right people.

I heard someone say "If the government has nothing to hide then why are they hiding everything". Truer words could not have been spoken about the Bush administration.