The three-member panel of judges threw out the government's appeal in the case in which a watchdog group is trying to find out how often prominent religious conservatives visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence.

Despite the ruling against the White House, the decision does not necessarily mean that visitor logs will be subject to public disclosure.

The White House can still raise a variety of legal arguments in an attempt to keep the identities of White House visitors secret.

But appeals court Judge David Tatel said the document request from the private group is narrowly drawn and can be processed.

The document request from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington would not require the president, Cheney or their staffs to sort through mountains of files, said Tatel.

The vote, planned for Wednesday, would end almost a year of wrangling between the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, and Congress and the White House over the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

A major issue was the Bush administration's insistence that the bill shield from civil lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without court permission after 9/11.

The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from wiretapping lawsuits. About 40 such lawsuits have been filed. They are all pending before a single federal court.

The ruling, thought to be the first successful appeal of a detainee's designation as an enemy combatant, ordered the government to release, transfer or hold a new military tribunal hearing for Parhat.

Parhat, a member of China's Muslim Uighur minority, claimed to have fled China in 2001 to an Uighur camp in Afghanistan. The camp was destroyed during US air strikes against the Taliban in October 2001, and he fled again to Pakistan.

It was there that Parhat was handed over to US authorities and in June 2002 was transferred to Guantanamo, where he remains.

A military tribunal assessed Parhat's status in 2004 and, while finding he had not engaged in hostilities against the United States or its allies, ruled he was an enemy combatant because he had lived at the Afghan camp.

The camp was run by the leader of an Uighur independence group, known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which was allegedly "associated" with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, court documents show.

The main evidence against Parhat consisted of four government intelligence documents which described activities and relationships that had "reportedly" occurred, were "said to" or "suspected" of having taken place. The court said these assertions could not be verified.

The 39-page opinion also noted the government had suggested that "several of the assertions in the intelligence documents are reliable because they are made in at least three different documents."

It cited Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark," where a character absurdly declares: "I have said it thrice: what I tell you three times is true," and said it had no reason to suggest the documents were not all based on the same source.

The opinion also noted that Parhat had made a "credible argument that ... the common source is the Chinese government, which may be less than objective with respect to the Uighurs," who allege oppression by Beijing.

In addition, the court rejected the government's assertion that statements made in the documents "are reliable because the State and Defense Departments would not have put them in intelligence documents were that not the case."

"This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true," the panel said, which would negate any need for a military tribunal or judicial review of tribunal decisions.

The Justice Department was quoted by the Washington Post as saying that "we are evaluating our options" following the ruling.

After deciding to outsource his legal representation, Beshear tasked his general counsel, Ellen Hesen, with spearheading the bidding process that included "several" firms.

He dismissed a notion that hiring his former employer could give a perception that he played favorites.

"If there is, there is," he said. "I wanted to get who I considered to be the best lawyers to represent me on such an important issue."

Williams, a Republican from Burkesville, filed the suit last month because he said Beshear improperly vetoed a bill outlining how road funds could be spent.

Steve Robertson, chairman of the Kentucky Republican Party, said Beshear's hiring his former firm looks as if he's helping out his friends and former bosses.

"Beshear's mantra during the campaign was 'taking care of our own,' and it's clear that he's at least making good on that promise," Robertson said.

Beshear told reporters that Stites & Harbison emerged as the top choice "because of their experience and their expertise."

In a 7-2 ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says Gov. Bob Riley did not need advance approval from the federal government to fill the vacancy.

The case involves a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that requires Alabama and several other states — most of them in the South — to get federal approval before changing election procedures that affect minority voters.

Ginsburg says the issue in this case is a narrow one that does not have broader application to voting rights disputes.

Conservatives contend that federal judges have upset the constitutional balance of power among the courts, the Congress and the presidency by making far-reaching decisions, such as one in 2005 that let cities seize people's homes to make way for shopping malls.

"My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power," McCain said Tuesday in a speech at Wake Forest University.

McCain, the eventual GOP nominee, promised to appoint judges in the mold of Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, saying they would interpret the law strictly to curb the scope of their rulings. While McCain didn't mention abortion, the far right understands that such nominees would be likely to limit or perhaps overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Obama, on the other hand, voted against Roberts and Alito. So did Obama's rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, but McCain focused on Obama.