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Obama Follows Bush on Detainees - by William Fisher

Obama Follows Bush on Detainees - by William Fisher: "Human rights activists and constitutional law experts were virtually unanimous in their condemnation of the positions taken on prisoner detention and treatment in federal court last week by President Barack Obama's Department of Justice, which one group described as 'a case of old wine in new bottles.'

While the Justice Department announced it would no longer use the term 'enemy combatants' – one of the George W. Bush administration's signature phrases – and distanced itself from Bush-era claims of unlimited presidential power, government lawyers urged the court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by four former Guantanamo detainees because 'aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.'

The former detainees, who are British citizens or residents, are suing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and several senior military officials for authorizing and carrying out torture and depriving them of their religious rights while the Britons were in captivity. The case is known as Rasul v. Rumsfeld."

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