Reading Room Document

Response to the Preliminary Report of the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants

This report is written in response to the creation of the Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants (“Task Force”) by the American Bar Association. The report provides the Department of Defense (DOD) with various legal arguments to counter the issues the Task Force was raising. The legal arguments include: the President has constitutional authority to detain enemy combatants, regardless of their citizenship, in time of war; enemy combatants have no right to counsel under either the Sixth Amendment or Geneva Conventions. The report suggest that the DOD, through these arguments, disqualify the Task Force's concerns as based on policy considerations, and not on legal objections. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at https://justice.gov/olc/docs/memo-aba-taskforce.pdf.

February 7, 2003