Geneva Convention applied to detainees

The Department of Defense ("DOD") released a memo today entitled "Application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to the Treatment of Detainees in the Department of Defense" (link from the Washington Post). This memo now applies to all those captured in conflicts with Al Qaeda. This DOD dismissed, in a press release today, "news reports that the memo represents a sweeping reversal of DoD policy or that the Supreme Court decision extends full Geneva Convention protections to detainees. "The court did not say that full protections of the Geneva Conventions apply to al Qaeda or the Taliban," he [Deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, Bryan Whitman] said, but limited its ruling to Common Article 3." Want to read some of those reports? Check out the Washington Post article "Detainees to Get Protections Under Geneva Conventions" or the Guardian's (for a British prospective) article "U.S. Says Guantanamo inmates have Geneva rights."