LAWYER ALLOWED FOR MAN IN BRIG

This looks like a "realistic" decision which would not have been made 
except that the Supreme Court would likely agree with Hamdi's claim or 
right to a lawyer

M.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/national/03BRIG.html?ex=1071032400&en=0285e959ec4b90eb&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

NY Times  December 3, 2003

The Defense Department said on Tuesday that an American citizen of Saudi 
descent who is being held in a South Carolina naval brig as an enemy 
combatant will be allowed access to a lawyer.

The man, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was apparently captured on the battlefield 
in Afghanistan, has been at the center of a legal debate over the Bush 
administration's enemy-combatant policy that allows the military to hold 
people indefinitely, without charges and without allowing them access to 
lawyers or their families.

Mr. Hamdi has been held in military brigs, first in Virginia and now in 
Charleston, since April 2002. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., 
ruled in January that he was not entitled to access to a lawyer or to 
challenge the basis of his continued detention. The Supreme Court has been 
asked to review his case.

The Department of Defense said in a news release yesterday that its 
decision to allow Mr. Hamdi access to a lawyer was "a matter of discretion 
and military policy."

"It should not be treated as a precedent," the release said.

The decision was a result of several factors, the release said. Among them 
were that Mr. Hamdi is an American citizen held in his own country, that 
military officials have completed their "intelligence collection" from him 
and that they have decided that his access to legal advice will not 
compromise national security.