Two influential U.S. courts dealt a double blow to the Bush administration's anti-terror policies on Thursday by ruling the government was violating the civil rights of so-called "enemy combatants" held in a South Carolina navy prison and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The findings by the powerful federal appeals courts in New York and San Francisco were the strongest legal rebuke to date of the administration's controversial policy of holding some suspects indefinitely without criminal charges and at the same time depriving them of access to lawyers. In one of two widely watched cases, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City held that President Bush does not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant. In a 2-1 ruling on the case of New Yorker Jose Padilla, it said only the U.S. Congress can authorize such detentions and it ordered the government to release him from military custody within 30 days. Padilla has been in custody in the United States for 19 months as a suspect in an alleged al Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb." In the other case, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the United States cannot imprison "enemy combatants" indefinitely at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. In a 2-1 decision, the court said that such indefinite imprisonment was inconsistent with American law and raised serious concerns under international law. It also said that the more than 600 detainees should have access to lawyers. "Even in times of national emergency -- indeed, particularly in such times -- it is the obligation of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," the Ninth Circuit panel said. **SEPT. 11 ATTACKS*** The ruling said the United States had held the detainees for nearly two years following the undeclared war against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and al Qaeda in response to the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the United States. "The United States has subjected over six hundred of these captives to indefinite detention, yet has failed to afford them any means to challenge their confinement, to object to the failure to recognize them as prisoners of war, to consult with legal counsel, or even to advance claims of mistaken capture or identity," it said. Legal experts said it did not appear the rulings would have an immediate impact on U.S. policy toward the detainees and expected both cases would end up at the Supreme Court. But the rulings strengthened the hand of those who criticized the Bush administration's response to terrorist attacks, including the 2001 Patriot Act which broadly expanded law enforcement's surveillance and investigative powers. Separately on Thursday, the Pentagon said that a Yemeni man being held at a Guantanamo Bay has been provided with a military lawyer, only the second of detainee at the base to receive defense counsel. None of the nearly 660 prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay has yet been charged with any crimes although Pentagon officials have suggested that military trials for some of the detainees could begin soon. In the New York case, the Second Circuit ruled that Bush had exceeded his power by detaining a U.S. citizen without Congressional authority. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A Yemeni man being held at a U.S. military prison in Cuba for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects has been provided with a military lawyer, the second of hundreds of detainees at the base to receive defense counsel, the Pentagon said on December 18, 2003. (Reuters)