Gov't Wins One; Habeas Denied For Detainee

A federal judge today ruled  that the U.S. government was within its rights to detain a Taliban fighter named Hami Hammamy, citing a variety of classified and unclassified evidence. Most compellingly, the guy's identity papers were found in Tora Bora; Hammamy claimed that the government planted them there, or that they were stolen, and the thief somehow dropped them there. The judge saw classified evidence about Hammamy's attendance at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.  Hammamy's is among the hundreds of cases under review by the Obama administration. Today's ruling means that the administration gets to decide, in the end, what to do with him. This case sets precedent in one way -- it provides the government with an evidence threshold above which most federal judges will sanction the government's detention decision.