He was against indefinite detention before he was for them. He being Neal Katyal, a lawyer with the Obama justice department. Just 3 years ago, in 2006 however he was defending prisoners at Gitmo in front of the Supreme Court.
Before joining the Obama administration as the top deputy in the solicitor general's office, Katyal won a big victory in the Supreme Court in 2006 when he represented Guantanamo Bay detainees facing military commission trials. The Supreme Court found that President George W. Bush's military tribunals violated the constitutional separation of powers, domestic military law and international law. That ruling also applied international law to the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror. The court embraced Article 3 of the Geneva Accords which prohibits humiliating and degrading treatment.
Now he is in court again representing the Obama administration in a case regarding 3 detainees held at Bagram in Afghanistan who are trying to earn their release, and this time he is arguing that Bagram is in a war zone so none of the rulings that were made regarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay apply to prisoners in Bagram. Rulings that he helped to get while defending the prisoners!
Gee what a difference an election makes. He was part of the group that defended the terrorists at Gitmo, which ultimately resulted in our Attorney General deciding that those prisoners could be brought to New York for trial. In an earlier post about Jane Harman I wrote that Bagram would be the next cause celebre in the terrorist supporting faux outrage parade and it certainly looks like it is shaping up to be just that.
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