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In a surprising ruling, a federal judge has determined that convicted terrorist, Jose Padilla, can sue former Department of Justice lawyer, John Yoo, over Yoo’s legal opinion that led to Padilla being held as an enemy combatant. US District Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California based in San Francisco, denied a Department of Justice motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Padilla’s lawyers contend that Yoo’s legal opinions allowed the US military to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant which led to Padilla being subjected to torture. As reported by local TV station KTVU: The lawsuit alleges the...

"With regard to those who you would describe as terrorists, we would not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would consider to be a terrorist," Holder said. He added the government has no plans to release anyone considered a terrorist in a foreign country, either.

Nearly six years ago, President George W. Bush declared Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri an enemy combatant and had him swept out of federal court and into a U.S. Navy brig so he could be interrogated without the legal protections afforded by the criminal justice system. Bush said the Qatari national, arrested as a material witness in Illinois in December 2001, possessed critical intelligence that "would aid U.S. efforts to prevent attacks by al-Qaeda on the United States." In an agreement Marri entered Thursday in Peoria, Ill., he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda and admitted to...

Barack Obama is considering retaining a modified version of the Bush-era military trials for al-Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, in what would be the biggest about turn of his presidency so far. The decision would effectively show his government has been unable to find another way of prosecuting detainees regarded as too dangerous to be freed, who include five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks. It also raises the possibility that Mr Obama may also have to keep the controversial prison open in some guise for longer than planned as reforms would require new legislation and cause further...

Andrew Breitbart is interviewed by Sean Hannity and in the interview he stated “While everybody’s worried about the banks and the economy, I’m worried about what’s happening to people out there who dissent from Barack Obama.” Hannity said “According to this administration we can no longer say Enemy Combatant, we can’t use the term War on Terror or even Terrorism itself.” Unlike Homeland Security Secretary Janete Napolitano, Brigitte Gabriel is a woman who can and does call our enemies by the names that she believes accurately describes them, such as Radical Islam, Islamic Extremism, Islamism, and Islamofascism.

Some analysts are claiming that this abandonment (dare I say it, 'cutting and running') from the term, "enemy combatant" has practical consequences; others say it's basically window dressing from a president who will outwardly make a cosmetic change to damn the Bush administration only to more or less continue the same policies. I don't claim to know who is more correct. But I am gravely concerned about the direction in which we seem to be headed. And I have reason to believe that Obama's decision to change his terminology will lead to deeper, more fundamental consequences, as a Wall Street...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration stopped calling Guantanamo inmates "enemy combatants" on Friday and incorporated international law as its basis for holding the prisoners while it works to close the facility. The U.S. Justice Department filed court papers outlining a further legal and linguistic shift from the anti-terrorism policies of Republican President George W. Bush, which drew worldwide condemnation as violations of human rights and international law. "As we work toward developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is...

Tawfik Hamid, onetime protégé of Ayman Zawahiri, writes the following: The real way to strengthen moderate Muslims in their fight against the radicals is to spotlight radical teachings and flush out those who believe in them. ....This is especially true in war: define your enemy correctly, and you will rally legitimate allies to your side. Blur what a battle is about and, stuck in the muddle, you are bound to lose.... Calling angina a "common cold" does not change its nature. It only prevents us from taking the necessary steps in treating it, which will only lead to further sickness,...

Although Obama refuses to describe enemy combatants as “enemy combatants”, he has reserved the right to detain enemy combatants without charging them in the American judicial system. Liberals who figured out what Obama is up to are not happy. They call the move symbolic with good reason. On the issue of enemy combatants, Obama is essentially doing the same thing as President Bush. He’s just calling it something else.

When our national and international news outlets, awash in mind-numbing political correctness, decide to not use certain terms (you know, because someone might get offended), it really does only thing: avoid the truth. This is what happens when newspapers use “militants” to describe “terrorist,” for instance. But it’s more dangerous when PC-induced stupidity infects our own president. With every day, I become more and more convinced that President Golden Calf is frighteningly ill-equipped to protect this country from the scum out there planning to attack us. Yesterday, Obama has decided to drop the term “enemy combatant” from the glossary in...

There are no enemies. There are only friends we haven’t made yet. A fine alternative term via Twitter: “Undocumented protagonists.”

The Obama administration today showed once again that the change they seek is one of style over substance, and terminology over practice: Obama admin. to end use of term 'enemy combatant' The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant. In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power as Bush had argued. The Obama administration's position came in response to a deadline by U.S....

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. But his Justice Department says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power as Bush had argued. The Obama administration's position came in response to a deadline by U.S. District...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Supreme Court refused to weigh in Friday on whether US presidents have the authority to indefinitely detain a terrorist suspect in the United States without charges. But it sent the issue back for a new hearing before the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, which ruled in July that former president George W. Bush had that power in the case of Ali al-Marri, an alleged Al-Qaeda sleeper agent. The high court's action effectively delayed resolution of an issue that, while different, could have implications for the estimated 245 "enemy combatants" still being held by the...

A military judge has refused the Obama administration's request to delay proceeding for 120 days in the case of a detainee held at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is accused of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship, an al-Qaeda strike that killed 17 service members and injured 50 others. The decision throws into some disarray the administration's plan to buy some time as it reviews individual detainee cases as part of its plan to close the prison. The Pentagon may now be forced to withdraw the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order asking the Supreme Court to delay a review of the case of Qatari national Ali al-Marri, the only "enemy combatant" detained on US soil. "You have a legal resident (of the United States) who has been detained; he is clearly a dangerous individual," Obama told reporters as he signed an executive order pertaining directly to al-Marri's case. "His case is currently before the Supreme Court. We have asked for a delay in ... going before the Supreme Court in dealing with this case, so that we...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- Military judges on Wednesday will consider motions by the Obama administration to suspend the Guantanamo war crimes trials for 120 days during a review of the system for prosecuting suspected terrorists. The motions, filed late Tuesday at the direction of President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, will be heard in the cases of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks and of Canadian Omar Khadr, who is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in 2002.... snip ...Relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, who were...

ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: CIA Director Michael Hayden offered a spirited defense of the agency's controversial detention and interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which Attorney General nominee Eric Holder characterized today as "torture." Hayden said the techniques provided extremely useful information about al Qaeda and have led to repeated successes against the terror network. "You can't say it didn't work. It worked," Hayden said in a wide-ranging farewell interview with reporters at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Va.

Reporting from Washington -- Human rights advocates are urging the incoming Obama administration to allow some detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to resettle as U.S. residents as part of any plan to close the controversial facility. Taking such a step would go beyond plans outlined so far to close the prison and transfer detainees to other countries or to military prisons on the U.S. mainland. But allowing a small number -- perhaps only two or three -- to live freely in the U.S. could help persuade other countries to accept some of them as well. "If we...