On November 13, 2009, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that five terrorists suspected of participation in the 9/11 attack and held at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center would be transferred to U.S. federal court to stand trial as civilians. He assigned jurisdiction to the Southern District of New York with assistance from the Eastern District of Virginia due to the fact that these two districts contain the World Trade Center site and Pentagon respectively; although, coincidentally (or perhaps not) prosecutors and judges in these two districts also have by far the most experience in counterterrorism cases to date. Although these cases are hardly the first examples of international terrorist suspects being tried in U.S. federal court, they nevertheless represent a sharp break with the Bush Administration’s policy for handling such defendants. Click here to continue reading.