No longer 'just a bill on Capitol Hill', 'anti-terror' law

[mburbank]

WASHINGTON - Hours after
President Bush signed a tough anti-terrorism law, government lawyers began putting detainees on notice that the U.S. court system no longer was open to them.


Now it is up to a federal appeals court, and ultimately the Supreme Court, to decide the fate of hundreds of people who have spent years arguing the government is holding them illegally.

Such challenges normally go before federal judges. But the new law, which Bush said was necessary to fight terrorism, strips the court of any authority to hear such cases.

Under the law signed Tuesday, the military now has discretion to decide whether to charge enemy combatants before military commissions or indefinitely hold the detainees.

The Justice Department filed notices with several federal judges Wednesday, telling them the law renders their detainee cases moot.