[News] US can keep 9/11 arrests secret

[News at freedomarchives.org]

US can keep 9/11 arrests secret

Monday 12 January 2004 4:01 PM GMT


The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration can keep secret 
the names of hundreds of people questioned, detained or arrested since 
September 11.

The ruling on Monday, which is certain to dismay human rights activists 
worldwide, also allows the administration to keep away from public domain 
other basic details of the detainees and those questioned.

Without comment, the top court refused to hear an appeal by civil liberties 
and other groups challenging the secret arrests and detentions for 
violating the Freedom of Information Act and constitutional free-speech 
rights under the First Amendment.

The justices let stand a US appeals court ruling that disclosing the names 
could harm national security and help "al-Qaida in plotting future 
terrorist attacks or intimidating witnesses in the present investigation."

Although the high court stayed out of the dispute involving the names of 
those detained, it has agreed to hear other cases arising from the Bush 
administration's war on terror.

Those cases involve the president's power to detain American citizens 
captured abroad and declared "enemy combatants" and whether foreign 
nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration at the 
US military base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Growing outrage

US highhandedness in dealing with "terror-suspects" has been a subject of 
global consternation in recent times.

It has been holding without charge 660 suspects, mostly foreign nationals, 
in Guantanamo Bay since the Afghanistan war. Most are faced with bleak 
prospects of an early trial even two years after their detention.

Human rights groups have condemned the continuing detentions and alleged 
the detainees have been sucked into a "legal black hole."


You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2E3632A3-FF89-4813-A2C6-9A66C1ED2243.htm 



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