Just caught this AP report published 10 minutes ago. This seems like a major defeat for the civil liberties absolutists:

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Wednesday by foreign-born terror suspects challenging their detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ruling that last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling did not provide them the legal basis to win their freedom.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that Congress had authorized the president to order the detention of “enemy combatants” for the duration of the war on terror.

The lawsuit by seven of the roughly 550 detainees being held at the U.S. Navy base failed to show valid legal grounds to overturn that power, Leon said. As a result, the proper place to contest their detainment is before military review boards, not federal courts.

“The petitioners are asking this court to do something no federal court has done before: evaluate the legality of the (president’s) capture and detention of nonresident aliens, outside the United States, during a time of armed conflict,” Leon wrote.

“In the final analysis, the court’s role in reviewing the military’s decision to capture and detain a nonresident alien is, and must be, highly circumscribed,” he wrote…

Another 55 other detainees are awaiting a different judge’s ruling in the same district court as Leon’s.

AP notes that he concluded the detainees presented “no viable theory” to support their claim that they are being held in violation of federal laws. Foreign citizens captured and detained outside the United States have no rights under the Constitution or international law, he said.

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