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      "id": 341034,
      "date": "2007-01-23",
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      "title": "Treatment of \u201cBattlefield Detainees\u201d in the War on Terrorism",
      "summary": "In June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear challenges on behalf of persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the war against terrorism. The Court overturned a ruling that no U.S. court has jurisdiction to hear petitions for habeas corpus on behalf of the detainees because they are aliens detained abroad, but left questions involving prisoners\u2019 rights and status unanswered. The 9/11 Commission recommended a common coalition approach to such detention. Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA), P.L. 109-148, to establish standards for interrogation and to deny detainees access to federal courts to file habeas petitions but allow limited appeals of status determinations and final decisions of military commissions. Congress approved the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), P.L. 109-366, to authorize military commissions for the prosecution of detainees for war crimes.\nThe Bush Administration earlier deemed all of the detainees to be \u201cunlawful combatants,\u201d who may, according to Administration officials, be held indefinitely without trial or even if they are acquitted by a military tribunal. Fifteen of the detainees were designated as subject to the President\u2019s Military Order of November 13, 2001, making them eligible for trial by military commission. In answer to the Rasul decision, the Pentagon instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals to provide a forum for detainees to challenge their status as \u201cenemy combatants.\u201d The Pentagon had earlier announced a plan for annual reviews to determine whether detainees may be released without endangering national security.\nThe President\u2019s decision to deny the detainees prisoner-of-war (POW) status remains a point of contention, in particular with respect to members of the Taliban, with some arguing that it is based on an inaccurate interpretation of the Geneva Convention for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (GPW), which they assert requires that all combatants captured on the battlefield are entitled to be treated as POWs until an independent tribunal has determined otherwise. The publication of executive branch memoranda documenting the internal debate about the status of prisoners evoked additional criticism of the Bush Administration\u2019s legal position. Finally, the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld determined that persons captured in Afghanistan in connection with the \u201cGlobal War on Terrorism\u201d are entitled at least to the minimum set of protections accorded by Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.\nThis report provides an overview of the law of war and the historical treatment of wartime detainees, in particular the U.S. practice; describes how the detainees\u2019 status might affect their rights and treatment; and summarizes activity of the 108th and 109th Congresses related to detention in connection with the war against terrorism. The report also summarizes legislative proposals in the 110th Congress, including H.R. 1 and H.R. 267.",
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      "id": "RL31367_2006Nov14",
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      "id": "RL31367 2006-03-27",
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      "id": "RL31367 2005-07-28",
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      "id": "RL31367 2005-01-13",
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      "id": "RL31367 2002-04-11",
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