in my county it's been five hundred seventy seven days since the confinement if one can call it that a quantum obey began on january tenth two thousand and two this is a terrible time for the united states for america first because it's very dangerous for those of us who live here in an unpredictable way but in a second way that is as important it's a terrible time  united states of america because we are in a situation in which we can and i think now are treating people in a way that makes us other than whom we are or who we say we wish to be you know these are difficult times when the united states government can do what they're doing here and take someone as we've all legend hold that person and then when the court went to federal court system the government tell communist is picked up by the nazis and he's held incommunicado and all he does is he keeps very neat on the wall of the cell not knowing what to do but nobody knows he's being held this is kafkaesque this is like something out of the castle where the more difficult question but he's not held in any of those places he's held in a place where only the united states exercises jurisdiction notwithstanding that bogus treaty for fueling for a whole fueling station that was forced down and yet american law was applied there the situation is exactly the same here the district court opinion made a mistake and didn't understand the ralph ok because it was trying to twist things to reach a preordained finally came around after the passage of time and opined that he hoped that there was some principled way in which this court could reach a result that would undo or mitigate or milieu rate the awful basis now without any information to ask for his release i would if i could but i think principle prevents me from doing that that he be identified as being there that he be given access to for his detention and i think he has a right to that because the united states has him they have sole and exclusive jurisdiction over him and putting him in guantanamo bay be thought to be brilliant by some people in the justice i want to continue just to read one more sentence from barbara versus madison the very essence of civil liberty certainly consists of the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury one of the first duties of government and i think it is the first duty of government is to afford that protection that's the protection that is asked for here continuing with the last sentence from this that i say plenty of time so i can read this the government of the united states has been phatic we term the government of laws and not of men it will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right does this person have a vested legal right he's got a legal right because he's a human being because our i believe was in shanghai and china if i'm not mistaken they were given legal process they were then transported to germany and held in detention by americans the people in guantanamo bay haven't had access to anything i just don't see how that something that's there because it's written on a piece of paper i think one has to look at the facts in the real world can one really say that one time the mobile bay is under the sovereign jurisdiction of cuba as i indicated b or i don't say that the united nations is the equivalent of cuba would i say that the configuration is the same in that putting aside who was sovereign in micronesia the united states distinction i can't answer that question i'm just not smart enough to answer that question i thought that's a significant issue and i don't know what the resolution of it is i would like to reserve the three minutes and five seconds  idea but there's there's a difficulty with respect you have an idea but you're not telling us or do you not know whether he's there know the problem is there would be two situations with respect to somebody at guantanamo there would be when there's an allegation do keep records and we are interested in nothing else more than in the true identity of the individuals that are down in guantanamo the difficulty is there's some subset of individuals stand there that haven't cooperated with the united states held and if the person and then you can go on to explain whether that's definitive because it's a common name like john doe or because there are only six or whatever about this unable to determine sounds like you have no idea who's but it bears it's a much longer name and it's spelled somewhat differently but it there's many many resemblance to it so the honest answer is right now we think we have him but we're not sure we're not we can't we can't confirm it one hundred percent and if i could say could contrast this with the situation that we faced in the d c litigation involving the individuals from kuwait there we were given a petition that provided much more complete information and so in that circumstances we were able to  right your honor and again there's some information that one would might expect to have been in the petition here that's not there such as the actual country of origin i mean the petition for example ledgers this individual is from a foreign country but doesn't specify which one that forthwith it just unfortunately the request but it's an awkward position because there are a few individual stand there who we simply cannot definitively identify and so under those circumstances to be difficult for us to  excuse me your honor with all respect i mean i wouldn't want the court to understand us this being anxious to get to the eisentrager issue or to the jurisdictional issue and we would if this individual if there were a way to confirm this individual wasn't down there we very much like to be able to do that and as an example for your honor in the coalition of clergy case before the ninth circuit it was just the government's suggestion that the panel ruled only on the standing issue and did not move on to the other issues and so i think would be american committed an offense i'd want time to know it was a criminal offense they could be prosecuted through military authority but they also could be prosecuted in the united states courts but it's very important they would be to ask you to the united states courts by virtue of specific states against the case which is the fourth circuit case which was a criminal prosecution and if you look at that case it's very clear that the reason that the fourth circuit has jurisdiction there is because of a specific provision i think it's eighteen u s c the section seven where would they go well if we if the united states to take your hypothetical were to torture these individuals or execute them that would clearly violate international law and where would they form the form for that would be through political diplomatic and military channels and that's were being held outside united states sovereign territory and once those two conditions are satisfied that jurisdiction under havey this doesn't why the court didn't focus there's really nothing in that opinion that focuses on the degree of procedures that they had already been does exercise control he does not operate as a sovereign even through the tenure of the lease and if i could just make one point that i think is important is that the court doesn't write on a blank slate when it addresses the question of what is th sovereignty and that i would submit that is equally true beliefs no matter what its terms that it does not affect the transfer of sovereignty and that is the important thing i want to mention one other thing which is the other point that puts you in the direction of saying definition i think of that word is not subject to change as would be the translation the spanish definition of that term so i think and the supreme court precedent for the notion that when there's a possibility to interpret a provisions of the english version of a treaty in a spanish version a treaty to coincide that that's the favorite translation or the favorite interpretation of the treat there are other arguments that are raised to try to distinguish the eisentrager decision but i think the important things i to aliens who are not somehow already designated to be enemy aliens but the supreme court for example in the case has said that the principles of eisentrager apply to aliens not to enemy aliens that case came up in the context of individual from mexico who clearly was an enemy alien this court in a number of cases has dealt with the entry function in the immigration context and it's applied to all aliens who aren't present in the united states not just enemy aliens i see my time's  was very large in this case and i don't think it is distinguishable for purposes of this case i would point out as we do in the brief that if this court were to disagree with the other courts that have looked at this question and found that there is jurisdiction in the united states court it would be far from obvious and we would suggest it would not be true that the proper court would be the central district of california and if the proper jurisdiction for such a virgin you're this what you that the eastern district of virginia would be the most proper place for it i think there junior or the fourth circuit i don't think that is used before this court i think the government engaged in some form of shopping by sticking those other cases where they struck them and by taking people into that circuit the only  additional point i'd like to make is the take up judge shooter's point about the temporality of the concept of ultimate and take that point to its logical conclusion which is that it entails the notion which i think is a fact here that presently the united states of america is in fact has jurisdiction over kuantan i'm ok such that american courts can exercise their jurisdiction there both in fact and in the law taking that point i have nothing else that i can add to that it's almost there are any questions about counsel's point about the corresponding spanish word and the fact that that sounds like definitive rather than temporal i don't know here's why i guess i thought spanish in high school in new york city in one thousand six hundred sixty nine was spanish no longer is what it was then i would have to research that and look at the etymology of the word and i'll do that and submit a rule twenty eight j statement to this court because i think the point needs to be addressed that wasn't the companion language i neither agree nor disagree because i haven't researched it i don't know the answer however i do not agree that there is any ambiguity whatsoever in the use of the phrase ultimate it has to mean something under the rules of statutory interpretation or construction as i understand them and i recently research that in one of the recall cases that we're handling the words have to mean something i think the word alternate is  ambiguous in english as we understand it it means somewhere later it's not a spatial term it's certainly temporal terms so i don't agree with the premises but i don't know the answer the question and i will best sovereignty so that doesn't fit well it could mean that it is the most most important rather than the future i don't think it's quantitative term i'm trying to insert route according to what i would understand ordinary language usage to be and it seems to me to be temporal i'm sure someone could if they chose to interpret it the way that you judge graber interpret it it just doesn't seem to me that in the context of a treaty