The Military Commissions: More Details

Though administration officials caution that the Defense Department's framework for new military commissions are at toddler stage, an official was able to provide a bit more detail on some of the unresolved questions.

In particular: will detainees be allowed to bring outside lawyers into the proceedings? An administration official concedes that the proposed administrative changes do not provide for the detainees to hire outside counsel. Many of the detainees have retained private lawyers who are working the cases for free.

However -- the official told me that "properly cleared" private lawyers would be allowed to attend the trials and sit at the defense tables as long as the defense team included a member of the JAG corps too.