Senator Ted Kennedy Spokesman On Supreme Court Decision On Detainee Treatment

June 12, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC— Anthony Coley, spokesman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, today issued the following statement on the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush.

“When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, Senator Kennedy called the Act ‘fatally flawed’ and said ‘its evisceration of the writ of habeas corpus for all non-citizens is almost surely unconstitutional.’ Today, the Supreme Court agreed, and rejected the Bush Administration’s blatant attempt to create a legal black hole beyond the reach of the rule of law.”

Senator Kennedy has been a leading critic of the Administration’s policies on the treatment of detainees. In this Congress, he is the sponsor of a bill to apply the Army Field Manual’s standards to all U.S. interrogations, and a cosponsor of a bill to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Senator Kennedy vigorously opposed the Military Commissions Act and the effort to strip Guantanamo prisoners of their habeas corpus rights.

Source: Senator Ted Kennedy's office