Adminstration Considers Broader Rights for Gitmo Detainees

Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey has called it a "black eye.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates has told Congress that he has asked his subordinates to draft plans for shuttering it. And President Bush has wished it gone.

Now, The New York Times reports, administration officials are considering giving Guantánamo detainees broader rights as part of a push to close the detentions center and, perhaps, relocate much of its population to the United States. Officials are weighing their options, but according to the Times, the front-running proposal envisions a new jurisdiction:

A specially created federal court with strict rules to protect classified information would hear detainee challenges to their detention. Judges who usually sit in regular federal courts would preside and would hear arguments from detainees’ lawyers. Few details of the proposal are known, but such proceedings would be unlikely to give the federal judges the latitude they would have in the habeas corpus cases the detainees are seeking in the Supreme Court, lawyers said.

The administration could also simply concede that detainees held here are entitled to habeas relief, undercutting years of legal arguments to the contrary. Another proposal still would reinforce the current detention hearings, currently run by military officers, by adding military judges.

In any event, the administration will continue to offload Gitmo detainees on foreign governments -- the DoD announced 11 transfers over the weekend -- but for the 200 or so considered too dangerous to repatriate, it seems change is on the horizon.