Obama Administration to Detainees in Afghanistan: You Have No Rights

Lawyers for the Justice Department told a Federal Court on Friday that the Obama Administration "adheres to [the] previously articulated position" on the rights of detainees held in facilities such as Camp Bagram in Afghanistan.

In effect, President Obama's officials are maintaining the Bush Administration position, first set out at Guantanamo Bay but extended to US prisons around the world that "enemy combatants" have no right to challenge their detention. The prisoners at Camp Bagram can thus be held indefinitely without any prospect of a hearing in a military tribunal or US or international court.

Last year the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that detainees at Guantanamo Bay did have the right to a legal process but declined to extend the ruling to those held in other US prisons.