The Washington judge charged with deciding whether four detainees in Afghanistan can have their day in court gave the Obama administration nearly a month to distinguish its views on detention from President Bush's. In a court filing Friday, President Obama's lawyers declared that the new policy is the same as the old one.

…The stance adheres to the Bush administration's theory of a global battlefield, where "enemy combatants" can be detained indefinitely even if they're far away from any traditional battlefield, and even if they're not directly engaged in hostilities. … "At a minimum, we were expecting that the Obama administration would say that they are still considering their position and whether or not to change course," Tina Foster, a lawyer for the Bagram detainees, told us.  … "It's one thing to say that we're going to close Guantanamo in a year," said Foster. "It's another to say that we're going to close Guantanamo, but we're not going to change any of our policies on holding people without charges and denying them access to courts."

…  full story at propublica.org (link )