"You have the right to an attorney..."

"... if we cannot afford to allow you one that might actually work in your interests, we will appoint one for you."

That's the new Miranda Warning, courtesy of the maladministration:

From a S.F. Chronicle article on the Boumediene oral arguments:

In response to questions from the bench, Clement said each detainee is afforded "a personal representative" to assist him.

How is the representative chosen? Justice John Paul Stevens asked. By the military, Clement responded.

And is this representative required to relay to his superiors any useful intelligence gleaned from the detainee? Justice David Souter asked. When Clement answered in the affirmative, Souter observed that the representative "is not in a position of counsel, as we understand the term.

Dubya maintains that, for (alleged or "designated") "enemy combatants", the maladministration and/or the military under Dubya's command will be policeman, magistrate, district attorney, defence attorney, judge, jury, jailor, and executioner. The only role they won't play is the "poor sucker that's caught". What a deal, eh? Who could complain about that?

The Boumediene petitioners? Who are they?

Well, let’s take the case of the Boumediene petitioners themselves. They were not captured fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan or, like Hamdi, surrendering a weapon there. Instead, they are Algerians who immigrated to Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990’s. Five of them are Bosnian citizens. On 9/11/01, each was living with his family in Bosnia. None is alleged to have waged war or committed belligerent acts against the United States or its allies. According to the Boumediene brief, they were arrested by Bosnian police in October 2001, purportedly on suspicion of plotting to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. But the Bosnian authorities had no evidence for this charge; instead, they acted under pressure from U.S. officials, who threatened to cease diplomatic relations with Bosnia if the petitioners were not arrested. On January 17, 2002, the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, acting with the concurrence of the Bosnian prosecutor, ordered the petitioners released because a three-month international investigation (with collaboration from the U.S. Embassy and Interpol) had failed to support the charges on which the petitioners had been arrested. On the same day, the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina, established under the U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Agreement and staffed by judges from several European countries, issued an order forbidding the prisoners’ removal from Bosnia. Later that day, however, as the Boumediene petitioners were being released from a prison in Sarajevo, Bosnian police acting at the behest of U.S. officials (and in defiance of the Human Rights Chamber’s order), re-seized them and delivered them to U.S. military personnel, who transported them to Guantanamo, where they have been held for the past six years, without contact with their families.

(h/t to Prof. Marty Lederman at Balkinization for the bio)