It sure would have been nice if we could have drawn some lines on this power over that last two years, but all of that was, you know, off the table.

Obama should absolutely make it clear that he renounces this particular unconstitutional abuse of executive power by Bush.  

We know that the Bush administration position is that (from Daphne Eviatar) "the prisoners at Bagram are 'enemy combatants' seized in a war, so the United States can detain them indefinitely, without charge or access to lawyers, until hostilities end - whenever that may be." We know also that none of the prisoners at Bagram are being held (from Jonathan Hafetz) as "prisoners of war." So unless Obama changes openly the status of those in Bagram, I would assume they are all being held as unlawful enemy combatants. And I would assume they are being treated as such - which means the AFM Appendix M is in play (it certainly can be used). As David Mizner writes here, "In upholding Bush's position, Bush [I believe he means to write "Obama" here] is reaffirming that these prisoners are enemy (or unlawful) combatants."

Obama needs to address this category - unlawful combatant - esp. as the AFM contains a section designed just for them, and it is a section of questionable legality.  

How else to explain all the defenses by the very young Obama administration of the power grabs by BushCo?

Gitmo closing, no torture. Very good.
Weasel wording to permit extraordinary rendition to countries where we can outsource torture? Not so good.

Now, the Justice Department is urging a judge to throw out illegal wiretapping suits, based on the need to protect the telecommunication companies while doing state business, as reported in the SF Chronicle.

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge in San Francisco to uphold a law aimed at dismissing suits against telecommunications companies that cooperated with President George W. Bush's wiretapping program.

In a filing late Wednesday, the Justice Department sought to dispel Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's concern that the law might violate the Constitution by giving the attorney general too much power to change the legal rules that govern the companies' conduct.

The law requires that judges dismiss suits by people claiming that the companies violated their privacy rights, as long as the attorney general certifies that the firms were helping an anti-terrorism program that the president authorized.

"Under well-settled law, Congress may leave the decision of whether and when to make a certification to the attorney general's discretion," government lawyers wrote.

They said Congress did not surrender its lawmaking power when it passed the so-called immunity measure for telecommunications firms last year. Instead, they said, Congress was directing the attorney general to shield companies from suits that endangered national security.

Again.

Oh, and BTW:  when the government swept him into the black hole of Charleston, they dismissed the charges then pending against him with prejudice.

It seems unlikely that President Obama will attempt to exercise such raw power,

cause you to think this? i've seen, read or heard nothing that would make feel comfortable in expressing such (almost) certitude. to the contrary, the obama administrations recent actions, such as defending telecom immunity, require that i assume just the opposite.

and yet,

We know that the Bush administration position is that (from Daphne Eviatar) "the prisoners at Bagram are 'enemy combatants' seized in a war, so the United States can detain them indefinitely, without charge or access to lawyers, until hostilities end - whenever that may be."

congress has declared no such war, and bush never asked them to. my suspicion (and it's just that,  i have no concrete evidence to support stating it as a fact) is that this was intentional; had bush asked, and congress did, he knew that all actions would definitely fall under the terms of the geneva convention, both in appearance and fact.

Somebody should ask the Obama administration if Bagram is in total compliance with the Geneva conventions. That's the big deal for me, not whether Bagram detainees have access to US courts. Compliance with Geneva means ICRC visits, outside communications, and a whole host of other rights and ends the black hole. It's horrific that unlawful combatants are in a black hole but I think the way out of that is to update Geneva and either declare unlawful detainees some kind of POW with all the rights that go with it or release them. I don't see how US courts have anything to do with Bagram.