The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that US President George W. Bush had overstepped his powers by creating military war crimes tribunals for Guantanamo Bay inmates.

In a 5-3 vote, the high court ruled that a military commission established to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a 36 year old Yemeni -- Osama bin Laden's former driver -- charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes and terrorism, violated US military law and the Geneva Conventions.

Following the ruling, the White House and other administration officials signalled they would try to consult with Congress to refine rules for such commissions, in line with the landmark Supreme Court judgement.

Gonzales said he hoped to try the suspects "in military commissions once we establish the procedures that will meet the requirements set forth by the Supreme Court."

Refering to the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Gonzales said the US continued to believe it was "necessary".

"When the US captures someone on the battlefield, we have to have some way of holding them so that they do not come back and fight against us or fight against our friends and allies," he said.

Asked about the practice of renditions, the secret transfer of detainees by the CIA to their home countries, where in some cases they risk being tortured, Gonzales insisted that the US seeks assurances before returning the suspects.

"When we have in our custody an individual and their home country wants them returned, we are not going to return them without adequate assurances that they are not being mistreated," said Gonzales who refused to comment on renditions cases to Egypt specifically.

"We look at past records of the country in the treatment of people in their custody," he said.

"In respect to Egypt, let me say that we welcome the progress that is occuring here in Egypt," he said refering to constitutional ammendments recently passed.

Italy has accused CIA operatives of involvement in what it says was a clandestine operation to kidnap Egyptian national Abu Omar in 2003, handing him over to Egyptian authorities for interrogation.

The cleric -- who was under investigation in Italy as part of an inquiry into international terrorism -- was the imam of a Milan mosque which had been under close surveillance since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

He was snatched from the street in February 2003 and flown from a US military base in northern Italy to Egypt, where his supporters say he was tortured.

"We do have a legal obligatin not to render someone back to a country where we know they might be mistreated or tortured,' Gonzales reiterated.

Gonzales, who is the first US attorney general to visit Egypt, said that his department will send a permanent envoy to Cairo to "further cement the relationship" between the two countries.

Earlier in the day, Gonzales discussed with Mubarak the situation in the Gaza strip, calling Mubarak's mediation efforts between the Israelis and the Palestinians "important in resolving this matter in a peaceful manner," in reference to the abduction Sunday of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

The Israeli army on Wednesday launched a large-scale offensive in the Gaza strip to rescue the soldier.

During his three-day visit, Gonzales met with justice minister Mahmud Abou Leil and interior minister Habib al-Adli.

In the court's most significant nonunanimous cases, Chief Justice Roberts was in dissent almost as often as he was in the majority. His goal of inspiring the court to speak softly and unanimously seemed a distant aspiration as important cases failed to produce majority opinions and members of the court, including occasionally the chief justice himself, gave voice to their frustration and pique with colleagues who did not see things their way.

The term's closing weeks were particularly ragged. The court issued no decision in a major patent case that had drawn intense interest from the business community, announcing two months after the argument, over the dissents of three justices, that the case had been "improvidently granted" - they should not have agreed to decide it - in the first place.

So if it wasn't yet the Roberts court, what exactly was it?

Perhaps it was the Kennedy court, based on the frequency with which Justice Anthony M. Kennedy cast the deciding vote in important cases.

Or perhaps it was more accurately seen as the Stevens court, reflecting the ability of John Paul Stevens, the senior associate justice in tenure as well as in age, to deliver a majority in the case for which the term will go down in history, the decision on military commissions that rejected the Bush administration's view of open-ended presidential authority.

Chief Justice Roberts did not participate in that case because he had ruled on it a year earlier as an appeals court judge. Based on his vote to uphold the administration's position then, he almost certainly would have joined Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., the newest member of the court, in dissent.

If none of these labels - Roberts court, Kennedy court, Stevens court - seem to fit precisely, it is probably because what the Supreme Court really was in its 2005-6 term was a court in transition.

For the justices, it was a time of testing, of battles joined and battles, for the moment, postponed.

The term's early period of unanimity, during which cases on such contentious subjects as abortion and federalism were dispatched quickly, with narrowly phrased opinions, reflected agreement not on the underlying legal principles but rather on the desirability of moving on without getting bogged down in a fruitless search for common ground. This was especially so in the term's early months, when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was still sitting but was counting the days until a new justice could take her place.

Once Justice O'Connor retired in late January, after Justice Alito's confirmation, and as the court moved into the heart of the term, some of the court's early inhibitions seemed to fall away. Yet when its most conservative members reached out aggressively to test the boundaries of consensus in the term's major environmental case, Justice Kennedy unexpectedly pushed back and left them well short of their goal.

In that case, Chief Justice Roberts along with Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas tried to cut back on federal regulators' expansive view of their authority under the Clean Water Act to define wetlands.

Justice Kennedy also deserted the conservatives in a redistricting case from Texas when he found a violation of the Voting Rights Act in the dismantling of a Congressional district that had previously had a Mexican-American majority. The action of the Republican-led Texas Legislature had deprived the Latinos of the ability to elect the candidate of their choice, Justice Kennedy said, leaving Chief Justice Roberts to complain in dissent, "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."

Nonetheless, there was little doubt that in its transition, the court was becoming more conservative. A statistical analysis by Jason Harrow on the Scotusblog Web site showed that Justice Alito voted with the conservative justices 15 percent more often than Justice O'Connor had.

A separate analysis, by the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, showed that Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts had the highest agreement rate of any two justices in the court's nonunanimous cases, 88 percent, slightly higher than the agreement rate between Justice O'Connor and Justice David H. Souter in the first half of the term, 87.5 percent.

Chief Justice Roberts agreed with Justice Scalia in 77.5 percent of the nonunanimous cases and with Justice Stevens, arguably the court's most liberal member, only 35 percent of the time. The least agreement between any pair of justices was between Justices Alito and Stevens, 23.1 percent.

The court decided 69 cases with signed opinions in the term that began on Oct. 3 and ended on June 29. Nearly half were decided without dissent, a greater number than usual, although not dramatically so. Sixteen cases were decided by five-justice majorities, either 5 to 4 or 5 to 3, a proportion very close to the 10-year average.

One measure of the court's shift to the right is in dissenting votes. In the previous term, the justice who dissented least often was Stephen G. Breyer, who dissented in 10 of the term's 74 decisions. But this term, he had the second-highest number of dissents, 16; Justice Stevens had the most, 19. Justice Thomas and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Souter were also frequent dissenters. Of those who served the full term, Chief Justice Roberts had the fewest dissents, seven. Justice Kennedy had the second fewest, with nine.

Chief Justice Roberts's dissents, while few, came in some important cases. In addition to dissenting from the Voting Rights Act portion of the Texas redistricting decision, he also dissented from a decision reopening a 20-year-old death penalty case on the basis of new evidence; a federalism case, in which the majority found the states not immune from private bankruptcy suits; and a ruling that invalidated the personal assertion of authority by John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, to penalize doctors in Oregon who follow that state's Death With Dignity Act and prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients who request it.

The court's next term, which begins Oct. 2, looms as a major test of the justices' fortitude and ability to work together, with cases challenging precedents on abortion and affirmative action already on the docket.

With the court having indicated in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the military commission case, that lawsuits now pending in the lower courts on behalf of dozens of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are still alive, the justices are likely to have further opportunities to address the profound issues of presidential power and judicial authority that these cases raise. This time, the chief justice will not need to stay silent, and the country that is just getting to know him will hear his voice.

Following are summaries of the term's major rulings.

Presidential Power

The court repudiated the Bush administration's plan to use military commissions to try Guantánamo detainees, ruling 5 to 3 that the commissions were unauthorized by statute and violated a provision of the Geneva Conventions.

The majority opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, No. 05-184, by Justice Stevens, set minimum procedural protections that any future commissions, even those authorized by Congress, would have to provide. Justices Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer joined the opinion. Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented. Chief Justice Roberts, who had voted as an appeals court judge to uphold the commissions, did not participate.

Elections

A splintered decision rejected a challenge to the Republican-driven mid-decade redistricting of Texas's Congressional map, finding that it was not an impermissible partisan gerrymander. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, No. 05-204. Agreeing with the judgment on the gerrymander challenge were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas. Justices Stevens and Breyer dissented. Justices Souter and Ginsburg expressed no view on the issue, making the vote 5 to 2 to 2.

In the same case, the court ruled that the dismantling of a district in southwestern Texas with a Latino majority, an action the State Legislature had taken to shore up the faltering prospects of the Republican incumbent, violated the Voting Rights Act. On this question, Justice Kennedy spoke for a 5-to-4 majority that included Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer.

The court voted 6 to 3 to strike down Vermont's campaign finance law, which both limited the amount that candidates could spend on their own campaigns and placed the country's lowest ceilings on contributions to candidates from individuals and political parties.

The fragmented majority did not offer a unified approach to contribution limits, leaving the court's path in this area uncertain. Justice Breyer wrote the controlling opinion in the case, Randall v. Sorrell, No. 04-1528, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. Justices Kennedy, Thomas and Scalia joined the judgment.

Criminal Law

In Georgia v. Randolph, No. 04-1067, the court held that when the police lack a search warrant, they cannot enter a home if one occupant objects, even if another occupant gives permission. The vote was 5 to 3, with Justice Alito not participating. In his majority opinion, Justice Souter said the decision comported with "widely shared social expectations" about privacy in the home. Chief Justice Roberts filed his first dissenting opinion in this case. Justices Scalia and Thomas also voted in dissent.

The court ruled that evidence the police find when they search a home to execute a search warrant can be admitted in court despite an officer's failure to observe the constitutional requirement to "knock and announce" before entering. Justice Scalia, writing for the 5-to-4 majority, said the ordinary rule against admitting unconstitutionally obtained evidence should not apply in this circumstance - nor, he implied, in many other circumstances currently governed by the "exclusionary rule."

This case, Hudson v. Michigan, No. 04-1360, was argued for a second time after Justice Alito joined the court; his vote with the majority determined the outcome. The others in the majority were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Kennedy.

The court was unanimous in ruling that inmates facing execution by lethal injection can invoke a federal civil rights law to challenge the state's choice of drugs and the manner in which they are administered. The decision, Hill v. McDonough, No. 05-8794, opened the door to lawsuits that would be prohibited by tight restrictions on petitions for habeas corpus. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion.

The court ruled 5 to 3 that new evidence in a Tennessee murder case, including DNA evidence, sufficiently undermined the prosecution's theory of the case to require a new federal court hearing for the man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the crime 21 years ago.

The case, House v. Bell, No. 04-8990, was the first in which the court factored the results of modern DNA testing into consideration of whether a prisoner might qualify for a chance at habeas corpus that would otherwise be prohibited by procedural obstacles. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority. Chief Justice Roberts dissented, along with Justices Scalia and Thomas. Justice Alito did not participate.

The court ruled 6 to 3 that foreign criminal defendants who have not been notified of their right under an international treaty to contact one of their country's diplomats are not entitled to special accommodation from courts in the United States. The decision, Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, No. 04-10566, rejected claims brought under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by foreign citizens convicted in Oregon and Virginia. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority. Justices Breyer, Stevens and Souter dissented.

In a unanimous opinion, the court ordered a new trial for an inmate on South Carolina's death row on the ground that an evidentiary rule used in that state's courts had prevented the inmate from putting on a complete defense. Justice Alito, writing his first opinion for the court, said the rule was irrational and arbitrary. The case was Holmes v. South Carolina, No. 04-1327.

The court was deeply split on a basic question of death penalty law: the validity of the death penalty statute in Kansas under which a death sentence is automatic if the jury finds that the mitigating evidence and aggravating evidence are of equal weight. Voting 5 to 4 in an opinion by Justice Thomas, the court upheld the law, which the State Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional. Justice Alito's vote, following a reargument after he joined the court, made the difference. Justices Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer dissented in the case, Kansas v. Marsh, No. 04-1170.

The court considered defendants' rights to cross-examine the state's witnesses, a right protected by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, in a pair of cases that were decided in a single opinion by Justice Scalia.

In the first part of the opinion in Davis v. Washington, No. 05-5224, the court was unanimous in ruling that a crime victim's emergency telephone call to 911 can be introduced as evidence at trial, even if the victim is not present for cross-examination, because a call to 911 does not produce the kind of "testimonial statement" to which the Confrontation Clause is addressed.

The court then went on to hold, by a vote of 8 to 1, with Justice Thomas dissenting, that a crime victim's statement to police officers who arrive at a scene should be considered "testimonial" if the police are investigating the crime rather than providing emergency assistance. Such a statement should therefore be banned from the trial if the person who gave it is not available for cross-examination, Justice Scalia said.

In another Sixth Amendment case, on the right to the assistance of counsel, the court ruled 5 to 4 that defendants who are wrongly deprived of the right to hire a lawyer of their choice are entitled to have a conviction overturned without the need to show that the first-choice lawyer would have achieved a better result. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion in the case, United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, No. 05-352, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer.

Government Authority

The court ruled 6 to 3 that John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, acted without legal authority when he declared that doctors in Oregon who followed the procedures of that state's Death With Dignity Act to help patients commit suicide would lose their federal prescription rights and thus forfeit, as a practical matter, their ability to practice medicine.

No statute authorized the attorney general to take such action unilaterally contrary to "the background principles of our federal system," Justice Kennedy said in the majority opinion. The decision, Gonzales v. Oregon, No. 04-623, was a rebuff of the Bush administration, which had embraced Mr. Ashcroft's personal fight against assisted suicide and carried on the case after he left the government.

Chief Justice Roberts joined a dissenting opinion written by Justice Scalia. Justice Thomas also dissented. Justice Alito was not yet on the court when the case was decided, with Justice O'Connor in the majority, on January 17.

A pair of decisions on the question of state immunity from suit, also issued in January, before Justice Alito joined the court, gave strong indications that the Rehnquist court's federalism battles were far from over.

The court was unanimous in permitting a disabled Georgia prison inmate's lawsuit against the state to go forward under the Americans With Disabilities Act. But the unanimity was achieved only because the court limited the decision, Goodman v. Georgia, No. 04-1203, to little more than the statement of a truism: that Congress has the power to make the states liable to lawsuit when they violate the Constitution.

In this case, the inmate claimed that his mistreatment had been so egregious as to violate not only the disabilities law, but also the Constitution. Justice Scalia's opinion said that to this extent, the lawsuit could proceed.

In the second decision, the court split 5 to 4 in ruling that states are not immune from private lawsuits brought under federal bankruptcy law. Justice O'Connor joined the majority opinion by Justice Stevens in this case, Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, No. 04-885. The dissenters were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas, who wrote the dissenting opinion supporting state immunity.

The court ruled that as a matter of constitutional due process, the government must take reasonable steps to make sure that homeowners have been notified before it sells a house for nonpayment of taxes. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the 5-to-3 majority in this case, Jones v. Flowers, No. 04-1477. Justices Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy dissented, and Justice Alito did not participate.

The justices ruled 7 to 1 that the Postal Service may be sued by people who trip over packages that letter carriers have carelessly left in their path. The majority opinion by Justice Kennedy in this case, Dolan v. United States Postal Service, No. 04-848, was based on an interpretation of the Federal Tort Claims Act, not on the Constitution. Justice Thomas dissented, and Justice Alito did not participate.

Environment

A fractured decision in the term's major environmental case, defining federal jurisdiction over wetlands in the Clean Water Act, did not produce a majority opinion but did retain the ability of the government to continue enforcing the 1972 statute vigorously.

The court split 4 to 1 to 4 in the case, Rapanos v. United States, No. 04-1034, with Justice Kennedy in the middle. One group of four - Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts - denounced federal regulators' open-ended approach to wetlands as "beyond parody" and would have redefined the term to land adjacent to open water and actually wet most of the time.

The other foursome, Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, would have deferred to the longstanding judgment of the Army Corps of Engineers that a "wetland" can often appear dry and can be miles from a body of water, as long as it sometimes performs a filtering or runoff-control function. Justice Kennedy voted with the first group to send the case back to a lower court, but he proposed a standard much closer to that of the Stevens group.

In a second case under the Clean Water Act, the court ruled unanimously that operators of hydroelectric dams must meet a state's water quality requirements to qualify for a federal license. Justice Souter wrote the opinion in this case, S. D. Warren Company v. Maine Board of Environmental Protection, No. 04-1527.

Religion

In a significant application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the court ruled 8 to 0 that a small religious sect based in Brazil has the right to import a hallucinogenic tea that the federal government had wanted to seize as a banned narcotic.

The tea, known as hoasca, is central to the sect's rituals, Chief Justice Roberts noted in his opinion for the court. He said the government had not met the religious freedom act's demanding standard for applying a generally applicable law - federal narcotics law, in this instance - in a way that impinges on religious observance. Justice Alito did not participate in the case, Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, No. 04-1084.

Education

Voting 8 to 0, the court upheld a federal law that requires universities to forfeit all federal financing if any part of the university does not provide military recruiters with the same access to students as it provides other potential employers.

The law, known as the Solomon Amendment, was challenged by a coalition of law schools that objected to the military's exclusion of openly gay men and women. The law schools argued that their First Amendment rights to free speech and association had been violated by the requirement that they open their doors to military recruiters.

Writing for the court in this case, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, No. 04-1152, Chief Justice Roberts said the speech in question was that of the government, not of the law schools, which he noted remained free to criticize the military and to express their views on its policies. Justice Alito did not participate.

The court ruled 6 to 2 that parents who disagree with a public school system's special-education plan for their children have the legal burden of proving that the plan will fail to provide the "appropriate" education that a federal law guarantees to children with disabilities. Justice O'Connor wrote the decision in the case, Schaffer v. Weast, No. 04-698. Chief Justice Roberts did not participate, and Justice Alito was not yet on the court.

Separately, the court ruled 6 to 3 that parents who prevail at a special-education hearing are not entitled to reimbursement for the cost of hiring expert witnesses. Justice Alito wrote this opinion, Arlington Central School District v. Murphy, No. 05-18. Justices Souter, Breyer and Stevens dissented.

Employees' Rights

The court gave employees substantially enhanced protection against retaliation for complaining about discrimination on the job. Justice Breyer wrote the opinion in the case, Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company v. White, No. 05-259, which interpreted the anti-retaliation provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The court defined retaliation broadly as any "materially adverse" employment action that "might have dissuaded a reasonable worker" from making the complaint. Eight justices joined the majority opinion, and Justice Alito filed a separate concurring opinion.

Addressing the free-speech rights of government workers, the court ruled 5 to 4 that the Constitution does not protect public employees against retaliation for what they say in the course of performing their assigned duties.

Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in this case, Garcetti v. Ceballos, No. 04-473, drew a distinction between public employees' official speech, which he said supervisors were entitled to control, and their speech as citizens contributing to "civic discourse," for which they retained constitutional protection. The dissenters were Justices Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg.

Abortion

The justices papered over, at least for this term, their fundamental differences on abortion, ruling narrowly and unanimously in a case from New Hampshire on access to abortion for teenagers facing medical emergencies. In an opinion by Justice O'Connor, her last before leaving the bench, the court reaffirmed that a medical-emergency exception was constitutionally required in a law that placed obstacles, like a parental-notice requirement and a waiting period, in the path of teenagers seeking abortions.

The more difficult question in the case, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, No. 04-1144, was that of what to do about New Hampshire's failure to include such an exception in its parental notice law. The justices sent the case back to the federal appeals court in Boston, which had banned enforcement of the law in its entirety, even for teenagers not facing a medical emergency.

That "most blunt remedy" would be justified, Justice O'Connor said, only if it was clear that New Hampshire's legislature, which enacted the law in 2003, would have preferred no law at all to one with the necessary health exception. Otherwise, she said, the appeals court should come up with a more limited remedy for the constitutional problem.

Patents

Indicating new interest in intellectual property law, the justices considered several patent cases but failed to offer much guidance in this burgeoning legal area.

The court handed a limited victory to eBay in its patent dispute with MercExchange, which successfully sued eBay for patent infringement on the method behind the online auction company's "Buy It Now" feature. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has sole jurisdiction over patent appeals, then granted an injunction against eBay's use of the technology, under the view that an injunction should automatically follow a finding of infringement.

In a unanimous opinion by Justice Thomas, the justices instructed the appeals court to make a case-by-case determination rather than apply an automatic injunction rule. But the opinion, eBay v. MercExchange, No. 05-130, left it unclear what presumptions and factors should go into that determination, and it was evident that the justices themselves had not agreed on a standard.

Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham said Sunday that Congress must address the Supreme Court ruling embracing Article 3 of the conventions in the military commission case of Osama bin Laden's former driver.

Article 3 prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, "in particular humiliating and degrading treatment," and bars violence, including murder, mutilation and torture.

In an election year, declaring that international law governs the war on terror reminds voters of some of the Republican administration's lowest moments: controversies over Justice Department "torture" memos and allegations of abuse against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

McConnell, R-Ky., the second-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, said the 5-3 court decision "means that American servicemen potentially could be accused of war crimes."

"I think Congress is going to want to deal with that," McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He called the ruling "very disturbing."

The Geneva Conventions' Article 3 is "far beyond our domestic law when it comes to terrorism, and Congress can rein it in, and I think we should," said Graham, R-S.C., assigned as a Reserve Judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. Graham spoke on "Fox News Sunday."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also expressed concern about the decision, saying it "is somewhat of a departure, in my view, of people who are stateless terrorists." McCain appeared on ABC's "This Week."

McConnell wants Congress to deal with the Geneva Accords issue at the same time it addresses the court's overturning of the military commissions created to try a limited number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Addressing the commission issue, McCain and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Congress might devise broader changes than the White House wants in trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

As a starting point for debate, McCain said Congress should embrace the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the bedrock of military law protecting the rights of accused soldiers. The Bush administration has skirted the code for nearly five years in dealing with Guantanamo Bay prisoners it has classified as enemy combatants.

Specter said "we have to reconcile" what the Bush administration thinks it can do and what the Supreme Court decision says. Specter spoke on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Many Republicans in Congress say detainees in the war on terror should not have the same legal protections as those in the military. Congress, they say, should give its imprimatur with little or no change to the Pentagon's military commissions.

McCain agreed that justice afforded to enemy combatants "shouldn't be exactly the same as applied to a member of the military." He added, however, that the Uniform Code of Military Justice is "a good framework."

The Supreme Court said Bush's military commissions violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.

Under military commission rules, the court noted, such panels may block an accused and his civilian lawyer from ever learning of evidence the prosecution presents that is classified. In addition, commissions can permit the admission of any evidence it deems to have probative value to a reasonable person.

The provisions of the Geneva Convention were intended to protect noncombatants - including prisoners - in times of armed conflict. But as the administration has repeatedly noted, most of these protections apply only to conflicts between states. Because Al Qaeda is not a state, the administration argued that the Geneva Convention didn't apply to the war on terror. These assertions gave the administration's arguments about the legal framework for fighting terrorism a through-the-looking-glass quality. On the one hand, the administration argued that the struggle against terrorism was a war, subject only to the law of war, not U.S. criminal or constitutional law. On the other hand, the administration said the Geneva Convention didn't apply to the war with Al Qaeda, which put the war on terror in an anything-goes legal limbo.

This novel theory served as the administration's legal cover for a wide range of questionable tactics, ranging from the Guantanamo military tribunals to administration efforts to hold even U.S. citizens indefinitely without counsel, charge or trial.

Perhaps most troubling, it allowed the administration to claim that detained terrorism suspects could be subjected to interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law, such as "waterboarding," placing prisoners in painful physical positions, sexual humiliation and extreme sleep deprivation.

Under Bush administration logic, these tactics were not illegal under U.S. law because U.S. law was trumped by the law of war, and they weren't illegal under the law of war either, because Geneva Convention prohibitions on torture and cruel treatment were not applicable to the conflict with Al Qaeda.

In 2005, Congress angered the administration by passing Sen. John McCain's amendment explicitly prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees. But Congress did not attach criminal penalties to violations of the amendment, and the administration has repeatedly indicated its intent to ignore it.

The Hamdan decision may change a few minds within the administration. Although the decision's practical effect on the military tribunals is unclear - the administration may be able to gain explicit congressional authorization for the tribunals, or it may be able to modify them to comply with the laws of war - the court's declaration that Common Article 3 applies to the war on terror is of enormous significance. Ultimately, it could pave the way for war crimes prosecutions of those responsible for abusing detainees.

Common Article 3 forbids "cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." The provision's language is sweeping enough to prohibit many of the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration. That's why the administration had argued that Common Article 3 did not apply to the war on terror, even though legal experts have long concluded that it was intended to provide minimum rights guarantees for all conflicts not otherwise covered by the Geneva Convention.

But here's where the rubber really hits the road. Under federal criminal law, anyone who "commits a war crime ... shall be fined ... or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death." And a war crime is defined as "any conduct ... which constitutes a violation of Common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva." In other words, with the Hamdan decision, U.S. officials found to be responsible for subjecting war on terror detainees to torture, cruel treatment or other "outrages upon personal dignity" could face prison or even the death penalty.

Don't expect that to happen anytime soon, of course. For prosecutions to occur, some federal prosecutor would have to issue an indictment. And in the Justice Department of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales - who famously called the Geneva Convention "quaint" - a genuine investigation into administration violations of the War Crimes Act just ain't gonna happen.

But as Yale law professor Jack Balkin concludes, it's starting to look as if the Geneva Convention "is not so quaint after all."

In London's Central Criminal Court, too, accused leakers will be in the dock this fall, for allegedly disclosing
President Bush talked of bombing al-Jazeera, the Arab television station. The British government threatens to prosecute newspapers that write any more about that leaked document.

Media advocates are alarmed at what they see as a mounting assault on press freedom in country after country, arguing it is potentially chilling the pursuit of truth as U.S. and European leaders pursue wars on terror and in Iraq.

"It's grotesque that at a time when political rhetoric is full of notions of democracy and liberty that we should have this fundamental right of journalists to investigate and report on public interest matters called into question," Aidan White, general-secretary of the Belgium-based International Federation of Journalists, told The Associated Press.

But others counter that national interest requires stopping leaks of classified information, and that some media reports endanger lives by tipping terrorists to government tactics.

"We cannot continue to operate in a system where the government takes steps to counter terrorism while the media actively works to disclose those operations without any regard for protection of lives, sources and legal methods," Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record) said in Washington.

The Kansas Republican was reacting to a June 23 report by the Times - and other papers - detailing a U.S. government program that taps into a huge international database of financial records to try to track terror financing.

Some Republican lawmakers called for criminal investigations of the journalists responsible and of the government insiders who leaked the information.

Investigations are already under way in other U.S. cases, reaching back to 2003, when whistleblower Joseph Wilson questioned a Bush administration claim about Iraq's supposed nuclear program. Times reporter Judith Miller spent three months in jail in that complex case last year, as investigators sought whoever leaked the name of Wilson's
CIA-agent wife.

The Washington Times says the Justice Department is also investigating New York Times and Washington Post reporters - the Times for disclosing in 2005 that the government was monitoring Americans' phone calls without court warrants and the Post for reporting that the CIA was operating secret prisons for suspected terrorists in eastern Europe. The CIA in April fired a top analyst as an alleged source for the reports on covert prisons.

Just as the stories cross borders, so do the crackdowns.

Swiss investigators are looking for the leaker of an intelligence document attesting to the CIA prison network and are weighing criminal charges, under secrecy laws, against three journalists at the weekly SonntagsBlick who reported the story.

In Britain, revelations and retributions have filled news columns and airwaves since the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in 2003, when the British Broadcasting Corp., citing an unidentified government source, said allegations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - now known to have been false - had been "sexed up."

In July that year, bioweapons expert David Kelly informed superiors he was the BBC's source. He expected confidentiality, but his identity was disclosed and he was compelled to testify, under harsh questioning, before two parliamentary committees. Within days, Kelly killed himself.

In 2004-05, at London's Daily Telegraph and then at The Times, correspondent Michael Smith reported on leaked memos from Prime Minister
Tony Blair's government indicating the Bush administration was long committed to invading Iraq, and weapons intelligence was "fixed" around that aim. Smith says he has been investigated under Britain's Official Secrets Act, but neither he nor any leaker has been charged.

For David Keogh, a former British Cabinet Office spokesman, and Leo O'Connor, an ex-Parliament aide, the outcome was different.

Both are charged under the secrecy act in the alleged leaking of a classified memo about a Bush-Blair meeting in 2004 at which Blair was said to have argued against a Bush suggestion of bombing al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar. Keogh and O'Connor face up to two years in prison if convicted this fall.

After London's Daily Mirror reported on that memo last November, Britain's attorney general warned other editors they could face prosecution if they divulged any more of the leaked document.

Across the North Sea, Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen of Berlingske Tidene, a major Danish daily, face two years in prison at their trial this fall - the first such prosecution of journalists in Denmark's modern history.

They reported in 2004 that before joining the Iraq invasion, the Danish government was told by military intelligence there was no firm evidence of banned weapons in Iraq, a finding the Danes presumably based on U.S. and British information.

Because it involved going to war, "the articles published were obviously in the public interest," the newspaper's chief editor, Niels Lunde, told AP.

The Danish leaker, a former intelligence officer, was convicted and jailed for four months last year. Now "the court must decide whether the penal code provision banning publishing secret information applies to these journalists," said prosecutor Karsten Hjorth. The government contends the leak damaged its intelligence relations with other nations.

Elsewhere:

-Two journalists in Romania face up to seven years in prison for possessing classified documents about the Romanian military's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though their newspapers never published the information.

-A German parliamentary report May 26 disclosed Berlin's foreign intelligence agency had been illegally spying on German journalists since the 1990s to find the sources of leaks.

-De Telegraaf, the Netherlands' biggest paper, had to go to court to win a ruling last month ordering the Dutch secret service to stop wiretapping calls of two reporters who obtained leaked information about official corruption.

"Systematic surveillance is becoming one of the most worrying features in relations between authorities and media worldwide," said the journalist federation's White.

Even whistleblowers who don't divulge state secrets can feel the heat - like Australia's Rod Barton.

After the Canberra government dismissed what he privately reported about phony weapons "intelligence" and prisoner abuse in Iraq, the former Iraq weapons inspector went public last year with the information. Soon Barton's government contract work evaporated, he was "disinvited" from official functions, and former colleagues were ordered to shun him.

"Although there is still freedom of speech, it is not entirely free. There is a price," he told AP.

There are five levels of alert: normal, Alpha (low), Bravo (medium), Charlie (high) and Delta (critical). "Bravo-Plus" is slightly higher than a medium threat level.

The Bush administration has urged North Korea to abandon its plans to test a long range missile. The Pentagon believes the missile is capable of reaching the United States.

NORAD and the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado would play a big role in both detecting and responding to a missile launch if it ever occurred.

The U.S. missile defense system is only a few years old, but could be tested if North Korea chooses to act.

Meanwhile, in a development that may or may not be related to the heightened security alert, an asteroid up to half a mile wide is due to brush past the Earth early today.

Scientists who have been tracking asteroid 2004 XP14 say it will approach almost as close as the Moon, traveling at 10.5 miles per second.

It has been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), along with 782 known others.

Initially there were concerns that the asteroid might collide with the Earth later this century. However, further analysis of its orbit has ruled this out - at least for the foreseeable future.

If XP14 did hit the Earth the effects would be devastating.

"It would probably be big enough to wipe out a small country," said Dr David Asher, from the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland.

The U.S. military's experience in Iraq, where no weapons of mass destruction were found and the war continues, has affected its approach to Iran, the magazine quoted a high-ranking general as saying.

"The target array in Iran is huge, but it's amorphous," the unidentified general was quoted as saying. "We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there.

"This is son of Iraq."

The United States on Friday spurned Iranian calls for more time to study an offer of incentives to curb its nuclear fuel program, insisting Tehran must reply by the Group of Eight industrialized nations' deadline on July 5.

The article, by journalist Seymour Hersh, also questioned the effectiveness of U.S. targeting potential nuclear sites.

"Intelligence has also shown that for the past two years the Iranians have been shifting their most sensitive nuclear-related materials and production facilities, moving some into urban areas, in anticipation of a bombing raid," it said.

Another parallel U.S. military leaders drew with Iraq is the administration's desire for a swift and cheap intervention in Iran without sufficient regard for economic and political consequences, including oil supplies and a backlash in the broader Muslim world and in Europe.

"If you're a military planner, you try to weigh options," one senior military official was quoted as saying. "What is the capability of the Iranian response, and the likelihood of a punitive response like cutting off oil shipments? What would that cost us?"

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his aides "really think they can do this on the cheap, and they underestimate the capability of the adversary," the official told the magazine.

St. Michaels, population 1,200 within the city limits and perhaps a thousand more in the same ZIP code, sits on the wrist of a peninsula that bends deep into Chesapeake Bay. With two broad clawlike fingers, spotted and wrinkled by coves and creeks that reach beyond the town and down to Tilghman Island and Nelson Point, it is a place of waterfront sunsets and white sails, of oysters and crabs, of birding, fishing and hunting, and of affluent retirees, tourists and weekenders. Most, like the Cheneys and Rumsfelds, are past 50.

With many less luminous who have made their marks in business, medicine, law, government and the military, St. Michaels is too proud and indifferent for celebrity gawking. "They're just people living in town," said the Hawaiian shirted bartender at the Carpenter Street Saloon, who thought giving his name would be indiscreet. "They're not the first important people living in town, and they're not the last. They're just here."

The town is beginning to contend, however, with 21st-century perils to its composure. After eight years of resistance, construction will soon start on a development that will bring around 250 new homes and swell the year-round population by about 50 percent. In summer, traffic is choking and decivilizing Talbot Street, the only road through town. Housing developments are crowding Tilghman Island, once almost exclusively home to fishermen - or watermen, as they're called.

One morning in May, Francis Zeglen put on a khaki windbreaker and his wife, Georgia, a turquoise sweater for a shopping stroll along Talbot. They were in a crosswalk when a light-brown pickup knocked them down.

Urged not to move, they were lying there blinking, Mr. Zeglen, 76, on his back, Mrs. Zeglen, 78, on her side. The Rev. Mark Nestlehutt, a tall young sailor and the rector of Christ Episcopal Church, hurried over, not solely on a spiritual mission. He is also chairman of the town's Advisory Committee for Traffic Planning and Pedestrian Friendly Streets - which, in a place with a speed limit of 25 miles an hour and few hot-blooded young drivers, they usually are.

The Zeglens were treated at a hospital in nearby Easton, he for a broken left arm, she for immobilizing bruises, and drove home to Philadelphia the next day. "I turned and looked," Mr. Zeglen said when he gave his own account of the accident, "and he just kept coming." The driver of the pickup was charged with failure to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. It had been a more eventful morning than most, the first pedestrian accident in 23 years - at least the first that the town manager, Cheril S. Thomas, could recall.

In St. Michaels, you also don't see much of the one-upping of Joneses or architectural bullying found in showier coastal resorts. The old farm families and the wealthy weekenders like the Rumsfelds and Cheneys look out over acres of lawn rolling down to the sea grass and their own private docks. But the homes are hidden down two-lane roads with cunning yellow signs on utility poles that say, menacingly and untruthfully, "No Outlet," and then down driveways shrouded by trees and lined with thick and impenetrable hedgerows.

The houses have names. Mr. Rumsfeld's is Mount Misery and is just across Rolles Creek from a house called Mount Pleasant. On four acres, with four bathrooms, five bedrooms and five fireplaces, built in 1804, the Rumsfeld house is just barely visible at the end of a gravel drive.

Thomas M. Crouch, a broker at the Coldwell Banker office in town, says one legend attributes the name to the original owner, said to have been a sad and doleful Englishman. His merrier brother then built a house, and to put him on, Mr. Crouch supposes, named it Mount Pleasant.

But there is some historical gravity to the name, too. By 1833, Mount Misery's owner was Edward Covey, a farmer notorious for breaking unruly slaves for other farmers. One who wouldn't be broken was Frederick Douglass, then 16 and later the abolitionist orator. Covey assaulted him, so Douglass beat him up and escaped. Today, where the drive begins, Mount Misery seems a congenial place, with a white mailbox with newspaper delivery sleeves attached, a big American flag fluttering from a post by a split-rail fence and a tall, one-hole birdhouse of the sort made for bluebirds - although the lens in the hole suggests another function.

Less than two miles from the Rumsfelds', past Southwind, where the late James A. Michener wrote much of his epic novel "Chesapeake," Church Neck Road dead-ends at private Fuller Road on the left. About a quarter-mile up, past grazing cattle and sheep and four other homes, is Vice President Cheney's nine-acre place, Ballintober.

The house, built in 1930, is rambling and white. It has a five-car garage, a pool, stately formal gardens, a laundry chute and large, glass-walled waterside rooms for entertaining. Coldwell Banker's real estate listing called it an "individually designed dwelling." It is also unapproachable. "The last time I went up Fuller Road," Katie Edmonds, an agent at Meredith Real Estate, said, "S.U.V.'s came out of the woods at me."

Neighbors also complain about federal security agents' shutting down Church Neck Road to let the Cheneys pass in their speeding brigades of shiny black S.U.V.'s. But they don't complain much, because the newcomers are thought to be good for property values. If the Cheneys and Rumsfelds are willing to buy here, after all, who wouldn't be?

St. Michaels was traditionally a center of farming, boat building, crabbing and tonging for oysters. For 100 years, it has also attracted older, upper-crust retirees from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia who buy waterfront sites and, more recently, century-old houses downtown.

The second-home owners cannot vote in local elections, but their needs, whimsies and appetites set the tone of the town. Approaching St. Michaels, Route 33 - the only way in or out - passes a lumberyard's lawn full of rocking chairs. In the town itself, where 33 becomes Talbot Street, a flag hanging from one store declares, "Quilters welcome." There are at least 20 bed-and-breakfasts downtown or nearby, no neon signs, no stoplights and, except for the plants and waist-high pink ceramic flamingos that the Acme supermarket features in front, no obstructions blocking sidewalks.

Except for the Acme, shops on Talbot cater to people with money to burn: the Calico Gallery, St. Michaels Candy Company, the Cultured Pearl, the Scented Garden, Rings & Things, Gourmet-by-the-Bay (an upscale food shop and caterer that has made Thanksgiving pies for the Rumsfelds), Justine's ice cream parlor, Flying Fred's Gifts for Pets. Bistro St. Michaels and 208 Talbot are expensive restaurants.

Only Big Al's - an emphatically lowbrow seafood and souvenir shop where Joyce Rumsfeld, the secretary's wife, comes in for bushels of cooked blue crabs - breaks with the Laura Ashley look of St. Michaels. Two small picnic tables sit out front, and the proprietor, Al Poore, offers sandwiches of crab cake for $5.95, soft crab for $6.95, oysters for $5.95 and fish for $4.95. Mr. Poore, who is 71 and about 6 foot 4 with a thicket of tousled gray hair, sinks like a ball in a catcher's mitt into the cavernous black leather easy chair in his memento-strewn office at the rear of the store. He opened it in 1968. "When I came here," he said, "there was one place where you could stay overnight. Now we've got one on every corner."

Merchants say they're wary of intruding on the privacy of the Cheneys and Rumsfelds, but they do it anyway. "I'm a businessman," said Mr. Poore, a registered Democrat who voted twice for George W. Bush. "I probably mention them to customers five or six times a week. They bring a lot of prestige."

Paul Gardner, the front office manager at the $250-to-$700-a-night Inn at Perry Cabin, a plush waterside resort at the far end of town, said, "We've had Rumsfeld in for dinner." Once last year, the Cheney Chinook landed near the inn's laundry and maintenance facility. "We're very pleased to have them in the area," he said.

Some people view the new neighbors less cordially. On Railroad Avenue, which the Cheneys and Rumsfelds use to reach Church Neck, Cassandra Harrison, a mother of two who waits tables and cleans houses, was resting on the stoop of her one-story white ranch house.

She is grateful that the air space above the Cheneys' house is blocked. "It's a no-fly zone, and that's good," she said. "But I'm not happy. I don't think society's liking them so much." Ms. Harrison, 23, voted for the first time in 2004, she said, "just because I did not want him. I don't think that they tell us the truth."

But that is a minority view in Talbot County, which went 61 percent for Mr. Bush in 2000 and 58 percent in 2004. Support for the war in Iraq is waning here as it is most everywhere else. But the great majority of Mr. Nestlehutt's 790 parishioners, he said, are "tolerant," live-and-let-live urban Republicans, not hard-core social conservatives. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld, he said, seem to fit right in.

Bush plans to celebrate July Fourth at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he will have lunch with military personnel. The president will return to the White House Tuesday night to watch fireworks in the nation's capital.

On the holiday, Americans should recall the ideals that the nation's founders outlined in the Declaration of Independence, Bush said. He also encouraged every American to find a way to thank those who defend freedom.

He urged people to help America Supports You, a nationwide program set up by the Defense Department to communicate citizen support to military men and women at home and abroad.

"At this hour, the men and women of our armed forces are facing danger in distant places, carrying out their missions with all the skill and honor we expect of them," Bush said. "And their families are enduring long separations from their loved ones with great courage and dignity."

"We will fight (U.S.) soldiers on the land of Somalia ... and we reserve the right to punish it on its land and anywhere possible," said the speaker on the tape, sounding like the Saudi-born militant.

No immediate independent verification of the voice was immediately available but the tape was posted on an Internet site used by Islamists.

Bin Laden, a Sunni, said the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq was being annihilated.

"It is not possible that many of (the Shi'ites) violate, alongside America and its allies, (the Sunni cities of) Ramadi, Falluja, Mosul .... (and) that their areas would be safe from retaliation and harm," he said.

Bin Laden said he endorsed Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. air strike on June 7.

On Somalia, he said: "We warn all of the countries in the world not to respond to America by sending international troops to Somalia."

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, had promised June 1 that by the end of the month 2,500 Guard troops would be working "on the border."

"As defined by the operation, the National Guard has met and exceeded its goal of deploying 2,500 soldiers and airmen to the four Southwest border states," said White House spokesman Blain Rethmeier. "Progress to date is real and the Guard's efforts are making a positive difference in this national effort."

As evidence, he said the early arrival of troops had allowed the Border Patrol to send 125 agents "back to the front lines," and helped the Border Patrol catch nearly 200 illegal immigrants, seize 123 pounds of marijuana, 18 pounds of cocaine and seven vehicles.

Through initial pay requests filed with the Air Guard and orders filed with the Army Guard, the Guard bureau verified 2,547 troops were in the four border states for the mission, said Daniel Donohue, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau.

Only 483 were physically on the border, he conceded.

The remaining forces _ 1,816 _ are in training somewhere in the four states; 248 are assigned to headquarters and planning roles, Donohue said.

Asked to clarify, Blum spokesman Mark Allen responded by e-mail that the general had never specifically promised to deliver troops to a "geographically defined latitude and longitude."

Still, there were signs the deployment was picking up speed.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said 1,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen were either on the border or "on their way," adding 500 to totals released Thursday. But his office said the additional troops didn't actually reach the border, but were considered deployed when they left Friday for two weeks of training.

Several states whose Guard leaders and governors had been contacted by the National Guard Bureau in the last 48 hours also made announcements Friday that they would send troops.

Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina said he would reluctantly deploy 300 troops to the border in mid-July.

"I would prefer not to have any of the North Carolina National Guard deployed to other states at this time," he said. "However, the Guard units in the western states are spread thin as they battle raging wildfires. We must all step up and do our part to keep our country safe."

Kentucky announced it would send up to 650 National Guard troops. Arkansas also said it would send 200. New Jersey also said it would send up to 650 for three-week assignments.

Damon Foreman, senior patrol agent and spokesman for the Border Patrol in San Diego, said agents there eagerly await the Guard's help.

"We would welcome all the help we could get. We could absorb them as fast as we could give them instructions on what to do," Foreman said, adding that the delayed deployment, however, had not affected operations.

"We've been doing a considerably effective job for a long time now, we'll keep doing our job whether the whole number of Guard show up tomorrow, a week from tomorrow, or a month from now."

Bush's plan for stemming illegal immigration by using National Guardsmen in a support role called for 2,500 troops to be on the border by June 30, and 6,000 by the end of July.

Bush had said the mission would free up thousands of officers now on other duties to actively patrol the border. Guardsmen are expected to build fences, conduct routine surveillance and take care of other administrative duties for the border patrol.

Under the general U.S. "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil get to stay, while those caught at sea are sent back. A Puerto Rican nature reserve inhabited by a few park rangers and lots of iguanas, Mona Island, like the rest of Puerto Rico, is as much a part of the U.S. as Miami is.

On a recent morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, accompanied by an Associated Press reporter and photographer, sailed 45 miles from mainland Puerto Rico to Mona to pick up two groups of Cubans. Approached from the east, among leaping dolphins, the 6.7 square-mile island looks forbidding, rising in sulfur-colored cliffs. But on the western side, facing the Dominican Republic, a white-sand beach beckons.

Eight Cubans sat at a picnic table under a palm tree, having spent 12 hours in a smuggler's open-air boat. Arriving just past midnight, they spent the rest of the night on mattresses provided by the island's rangers.

They said they were scared they would either drown or be caught by authorities during the journey.

"We prayed for 12 hours, aloud or silent, but we prayed," said Richard Echevarria, his green T-shirt shirt stiff with sweat and salt spray. Another boat carrying nine Cubans had arrived two days earlier.

The Cubans said they flew to the Dominican Republic on commercial airliners. Even accomplishing that step required patience and luck. To leave Cuba legally, Cubans must generally get a visa from the country they're going to visit, plus a letter of invitation from a citizen of that country. They then must seek an exit visa from the Cuban government, which is sometimes denied. The process can take months.

The Cubans - who couldn't simply fly from the Dominican Republic to the United States without a U.S. visa - then paid between $1,500 and $2,000 to be taken by boat to Mona. That's at least $12,000 total for one boatload.

Dominican people-smugglers are turning huge profits in this growing industry, and few are prosecuted.

"If they hear you speaking with a Cuban accent in Santo Domingo, someone is going to come up to you and offer to arrange the trip," said Jorge Bueno, one of the new arrivals. Another Cuban said he hadn't left the Dominican capital's airport before someone sidled up with an offer.

"It's very lucrative. It's better than trafficking drugs," Bueno remarked as he donned an orange life vest and settled into the back of the Customs boat.

Few migrants of other nationalities plying these seas show up at Mona, which sits about halfway between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, because they know they'll be sent back. Instead, they try to make it all the way to Puerto Rico's western shores. About 600 have been arrested since October, most of them Dominicans, Diaz said.

The trip aboard low-slung boats called yolas is hazardous and many have died in the 80-mile-wide Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where the Atlantic collides with the Caribbean and is often stormy.

In November a federal judge in Puerto Rico sentenced five Dominicans to prison terms of 10 to 17 years. They were captured after their yola capsized with 93 Dominican migrants aboard. At least seven of them drowned.

It was a rare victory over the smugglers. About 80 suspects were arrested in the Dominican Republic in the first three months of this year but nearly all were released for lack of evidence, said Adm. Delfin Bautista, the commander of a Dominican naval unit that searches for the yolas. Migrants hoping to make the voyage again refuse to testify for fear of being blacklisted by smugglers. Bautista said smugglers are treated locally as heroes.

When a Coast Guard cutter intercepts a yola, the pilot pretends to be one of the migrants, said Petty Officer First Class Howard Sanchez, of the Coast Guard cutter Matinicus.

"You can't tell who the smuggler is, and none of the migrants will point him out to us," the Brooklyn native said.

After taking the migrants aboard, the Coast Guard sets the yola on fire or sinks it with machine gun fire.

As the Customs boat headed back to Puerto Rico, it leaped over 10-foot swells and smashed into cavernous troughs, drenching the 17 Cubans aboard in spray. One threw up.

"Imagine if you were out there in one of those yolas," Agent Art Morrell shouted over the roar of the engine.

Three hours later, the boat docked in Boqueron, southwest Puerto Rico. Carlos Alvarez, a butcher from Higuey, Cuba, combed his hair. Wearing a red tank top, he was the first to step off the boat.

There was no ceremony or celebration. The exhausted migrants said they just wanted to get to the U.S. mainland, mostly to Florida, where relatives awaited them.

For those without money, help comes from a group of women in San Juan who left Cuba decades ago and devote themselves to aiding their newly arrived compatriots. They give them clothes, put them up in a San Juan hotel and help pay their passage to the mainland.

The migrants were locked in Customs vans and driven to a processing center on a former U.S. Air Force base. The agents checked the migrants' Cuban IDs and fingerprinted and photographed them. The agents can detect the distinctive Cuban accent but generally don't contact Cuban authorities to verify the migrants really are Cuban or have a criminal record.

These newly arrived migrants were among the lucky ones.

Capt. James Tunstall, commander of Coast Guard operations in the eastern Caribbean, says the traffic should be stopped before it leads to "a catastrophic event ... when you have an overladen yola coming across with men, women and children in a sea that can become very rough very quickly."

Alvarez, the butcher, said he had planned to bring out his wife and daughter by the Mona route. But after seeing how dangerous it is, he expressed second thoughts.

"I wouldn't want to put them through that," he said.