FROM ROGER FITCH AND OUR FRIENDS DOWN UNDER

Death throes of the Bush regime … Key case to test concept of “enemy combatants” ... Last minute election tricks in the Republican armoury … Cheney ordered not to destroy his papers … The 20 most corrupt members of Congress.

Even in its dying days the Bush administration seeks to vindicate a frightening principle and make it a permanent feature of American law.

It’s the notion that a US president, on his own say-so, can seize and indefinitely detain anyone, anywhere in the world, including US citizens and those on US soil, for any reason he chooses – without “second-guessing”, as the Bush lawyers call judicial review.

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