The NYT Magazine includes a long story on the eroding right to counsel in these United States.

In two cases now before the courts, Attorney General John Ashcroft is asserting that President Bush has the power to detain any American citizen indefinitely, in solitary confinement, without access to a lawyer, if he, the president, designates the detainee an ”enemy combatant.” The detainee cannot effectively challenge that designation. A court may hold a habeas corpus proceeding, but the government need produce only its own assertions of evidence, not subject to cross-examination. ”Some evidence” will suffice — that is, any evidence, however unchecked and second-hand. That is the claim being made by the law officers of the United States.