The US Supreme Court Thursday ruled Guantanamo prisoners have the right to challenge their detention at the US military base in civilian courts, dealing a stiff rebuke to the Bush administration. "The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," the court said in its historic ruling, for the third time in four years striking down the government's case for trying "war on terror" suspects in military tribunals.

"Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law," the court added, ruling that prisoners in the remote US jail in southern Cuba "have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus."



By a vote of five to four, the court found that even if the base was officially on Cuban territory, it was in fact operating as if it were on American soil.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration was "reviewing the opinion" but declined immediate comment.

Thursday's ruling should now give the prisoners and their legal teams the right under the constitution to demand to know on what basis they are being held.



So far the administration of President George W. Bush has refused to unveil the body of evidence to justify the prisoners' continued detention, arguing it would be against the interests of national security.

Detainees have long protested that they had been mistreated, and have questioned the very legality of the Guantanamo military tribunals, which the administration has said will try the cases of 80 prisoners instead of civilian courts.

The Supreme Court took up the issue of Guantanamo inmates in 2004 and again in 2006, ruling both times that detainees had a statutory -- legal but not constitutional -- right to contest their indefinite detention before an independent judge, a legal process known as habeas corpus.



But, urged by the Bush administration, Congress in 2006 passed new legislation that forbade them from seeking justice in a federal court until they are judged by a special military tribunal.

It was not immediately clear how Thursday's ruling would affect those 270 detainees still held in the jail.

Australian David Hicks is the only "war on terror" detainee to have so far been sentenced at Guantanamo after pleading guilty in a deal with US authorities which allowed him to serve out the remaining nine months of his sentence at home.



The most important trial of five alleged suspects in the September 11, 2001 attacks is not due to get fully underway until the summer, after they were read the charges against them at a hearing last week.

The first detainee who could be affected is Yemeni Salim Hamdan, accused of being the driver and personal bodyguard of the leader of the Al-Qaeda terror network, Osama bin Laden.

An initial appeal by Hamdan led to the 2006 Supreme Court decision, and his lawyers have already filed an appeal to a Washington court which was awaiting the Supreme Court decision before taking up the case.



Since the camp was opened in January 2002 to deal with the suspects rounded up in the US "war on terror" it has under gone major changes.

Two-thirds of the 800 prisoners who have passed through its barbed-wire gates have been freed, mostly without charge, after several years in captivity.

But the remaining prisoners are often held in solitary confinement, allowed little contact with their families and the outside world, and have no certainty about their fate.

Four detainees have committed suicide, and hunger strikes are frequent, leading to the force feeding of prisoners by their military guards.



The initial open air cages, which triggered a storm of international criticism, have long been emptied and today have returned to grass and the native iguanas.

And most of the prisoners, even those which the US authorities have said could be freed, are now housed in modern cells modelled on those in US high-security jails.

Both candidates to succeed Bush in the November elections, Republican John McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama have said they will close the prison.

The White House has also repeatedly said it would shut Guantanamo down, but has failed so far to come with an alternative, or to find countries willing to take some prisoners, such as Muslim Uighurs from northwest China, who face repression at home.




Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Supreme Court: Guantanamo Detainees Have Rights in Court
ABC News -
Top court allows Guantanamo prisoners' appeals Reuters
High Court ruling may delay war crimes trials

US Supreme Court Grants Guantanamo Bay Detainees Habeus Corpus Rights
AHN -
Washington, DC (AHN) - The United States Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to habeas corpus, it is a stunning blow ...

Text of the Decision (pdf)

Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian CourtsBack to Article »
The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s argument that the Guantánamo Bay detainees had adequate protections under a 2005 law.

US violates detainee rights in Guantanamo, top court says
MarketWatch -
By Rex Nutting WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Bush administration is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the ...

Supreme Court Rules Guantanamo Detainees Have Habeas Rights
ABA Journal, IL -
By Debra Cassens Weiss The US Supreme Court has delivered a stunning defeat to the Bush administration in a ruling that gives detainees at Guantanamo Bay a ...

[b]Supreme Court ruling cripples Guantanamo trials[/b]

Third Ruling In Favor Of Guantanamo Bay Detainees Issued By US ...

Leahy statement on Supreme Court decision

Amnesty International Hails US Supreme Court Decision Recognizing ...

Democrats seize on Supreme Court Gitmo Ruling

ADL Welcomes Supreme Court Decision Upholding Due Process Rights ...
Anti-Defamation League (press release), NY - 1 hour ago

US Sen. Harkin: Statement Regarding Supreme Court Decision ...

Supreme Court Restores Rule Of Law To Guantánamo
ACLU (press release), NY -

Scalia: Court's Decision Restoring Habeas 'Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans To Be Killed' In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus protections apply to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. "We hold these petitioners do have the habeas corpus privilege," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion. The decision was a "a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies," SCOTUS Blog noted.

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, however, is outraged. In his dissenting opinion, he devoted an entire section to "a description of the disastrous consequences of what the Court has done today," a procedure "contrary to my usual practice," he admitted. Scalia adopted extreme rhetoric about the impacts of the decision, calling it a "self-invited…incursion into military affairs" that would "almost certainly" kill Americans. Some lowlights:

– "America is at war with radical Islamists. … Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq."

– "The game of bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the Nation's Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

– "Today the Court warps our Constitution."

– "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today."

It is unlikely that the Supreme Court's decision will have the impacts that Scalia claims. As Kennedy explained, "Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law." Discussing the restoration of habeas at Guantanamo last year, Colin Powell noted:

The concern was, well, then they'll have access to lawyers, then they'll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn't that what our system's all about? And by the way, America, unfortunately, has too many people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system.

But as a cheerleader for the administration's terrorism policies, Scalia's rhetoric isn't surprising. It is "absurd" to say that you "can't stick something under the fingernails," or "smack [a detainee] in the face," he said in February. "No. To the contrary," Scalia said when asked whether torture violates the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.

This is some of what I was talking about on the "Nastiness" thread. Those who have the authority who are either incompetent or who have values that are diametrically opposite and condemned by any sane reading of our founding principles. We did not get to where we are on the cusp of a Fascist State overnight or by "magic". People like Scalia and others are placed onto the highest court in the land by people who are as foul as they are and cannot not mean well. Sound harsh? How does one uphold cowardice and cruelty? In fact become a champion of it and somehow lay claim to civilized morality? And isn't then the "issue" even more these people than the various shameful notions they hold?

Bush disagrees with court's Guantanamo ruling Jun 12 02:37 PM US/Eastern
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer


ROME (AP) - President Bush on Thursday strongly disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling that clears foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. Bush suggested new legislation may now be needed to keep the American people safe. "We'll abide by the court's decision," Bush said during a news conference in Rome. "That doesn't mean I have to agree with it." The court's decision was sure to be popular in Europe, where many leaders have called for the closing of of Guantanamo.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

"It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented," Bush said. "And that dissent was based upon their serious concerns about U.S. national security."

Bush said his administration will study the ruling. "We'll do this with this in mind—to determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate so we can safely say to the American people, 'We're doing everything we can to protect you.'"

The president, meeting with allies in a farewell tour of Europe, was reminded again that his time in office is fleeting. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was asked which U.S. president he would like to see next—Sen. John McCain of Arizona or Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

"I suppose I could express my own personal preference for one of the candidates, the Republican candidate," Berlusconi said. "And this is for a very selfish reason, and that is that I would no longer be the oldest person at the upcoming G-8 (meeting) because McCain is a month older than me." McCain is 71.

On soaring oil prices, the president made clear that the United States would send a high-level official to a summit recently announced by Saudi Arabia. The upcoming meeting is designed to gather oil producing countries and consumer nations. Bush made clear he would not be the one attending.

The Saudis are concerned that sustained high oil prices will eventually slacken the world's appetite for oil, affecting them in the long run. Saudi Arabia holds the world's largest oil reserve.

"The prices of gas are high and the American people don't like it and I can understand why they don't like it," Bush said.

"I said it's an interesting idea, I need to get home and study it," Bush said of the oil summit. "We'll send someone high-level here."

Bush's trip, which stretches from Slovenia to Northern Ireland, has largely been dominated by the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. He has also confronted matters of climate change, Mideast peace and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But he made a point to show those watching and listening in the U.S. that he was not overlooking the devastating weather that has hit back home.

In an opening statement at the news conference, Bush said, "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the terrible tornadoes and flooding, especially those who've lost loved ones. We've been inspired by the stories of heroism, neighbors helping neighbors and communities coming together. It's a really tough time for the people in the midwestern part of the United States and they'll have the prayers of the American people."

Bush praised Italy for committing troops to trouble spots around the world, including more than 2,000 Italian troops toward the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. Italy, along with Germany, France and Spain, have restricted their troops to less dangerous areas in northern Afghanistan—and that has caused a rift because other NATO members are deployed in the more violent regions of the nation.

Berlusconi said during the news conference that he and Bush had discussed these restrictions; Bush seemed to go further, saying he was pleased to learn under Berlusconi's instruction, "the caveats that have restricted your forces in Afghanistan have been removed."

Unlike other European leaders, such as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac, Berlusconi supported Bush on Iraq from the start. The 71-year-old media mogul defied domestic opposition and dispatched about 3,000 troops to Iraq after the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Those troops came home, and Berlusconi, recently elected to his third stint in power since 1994, has pledged not to send any back.

MORE ON SUPREME COURT DECISION: Guantanamo Detainees Have Habeas Rights Regardless of whether the United States has formal, legal sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay, its "complete and uninterrupted control" for over 100 years over the land meant that the Government could not render the Constitution irrelevant there..

Supreme Court : "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." The Supreme Court delivers a third blow to blood thirsty, warmongering Bush/Cheney administration. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said,"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." HABEAS CORPUS LIVES!

• Supreme Court Ruling
  • Suspects Can Appeal in Civ Crts
  • Democrats Seize on Ruling
  • 'Defeat for the Nation'
  • Obama was Right, McCain Wrong

Administration Strategy for Terrorist Detention Now in Disarray

Supreme Court to Bush: You Are Not Above the Law, Gitmo Detainees Have Right to Habeas Corpus

Liliana Segura, AlterNet

Rights and Liberties: After a six-year battle that cut to the Constitution's core, a look at how advocates for Gitmo prisoners won a major victory against Bush.

This is one that favors Emergent Evolution...Celebrate...If we want more of these, elect Demoncratic
Senator Barack Obama For President...Otherwise, this may be the last one we see in a long time...

Court Says Detainees Have Rights, Bucking Bush

Mukasey Says Guantánamo Military Trials Will Proceed

Supreme Court Ruling Could Free Scores From Guantánamo

Sen. Graham Wants Const. Amendment to Overturn Gitmo Ruling

• Boumediene v. Bush
  • Court Extends Constitutional Protections to Gitmo Detainees
  • Full Text of Ruling (pdf)
  • Mukasey: Trials Will Proceed
  • Detention Strategy Up in Air
• Comment on SCOTUS Decision
  • Unprecedented Power Grab - Samp
  • Scalia's Fear Factor - Kaye
  • Predictably Careless - Johnson
  • Editorial Roundup

Editorial Round Up of Boumediene v.... A sampling of editorial opinion from papers around the country on yesterday's bi...

Who Are We More Afraid Of: Enemy Combatants Or Federal Courts? - Slate

Bush Administration: Supreme Court Ruling Won't Stop Detainee Trials
<h4 class="subhead">Read HuffPost's WarWire</h4> Quick Read

What Does the Gitmo Ruling Mean?: Worthington

Andy Worthington
The Supreme Court's Gitmo Decision: What Does It Mean?

Don't You Know There's A War On?

By Jeffrey Imm


I am sending U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy a framed copy of a photograph of the remains of the World Trade Center West building after the 9/11 attacks with a note "Don't You Know There's A War On?".

The Real Headline: "U.S. Supreme Court Doesn't Think We Are At War with Jihad"

On June 12, 2008, the majority on the Supreme Court ruled in "Boumediene v. Bush," that habeas corpus rights guaranteed to American citizens under the Constitution will be extended to foreign Jihadist enemy combatants currently held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority of the Supreme Court stating that "t is true that before today the Court has never held that noncitizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution." (Justice Kennedy Majority Opinion, page 41).

Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the majority opinion of the Court, in which Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, with Justice Souter providing a concurring opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia both filed dissenting opinions; the other two dissenting judges were Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

In this decision, the Supreme Court majority tells the American people to ignore that, in no time in American history have habeas corpus rights been granted to unlawful foreign enemy combatants, to ignore that during WWII the Supreme Court ruled that unlawful combatant saboteurs could be denied habeas corpus, to ignore that during the Civil War that habeas corpus was suspended for American citizens, to ignore that the Supreme Court ruling seeks to give foreign enemy combatants more rights than illegal aliens. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy ignores the reality that the U.S. Constitution was for American citizens, not foreign enemy combatants during wartime, by arrogantly demanding that "[t]he laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."(Justice Kennedy Majority Opinion, page 70).


Read More »


Perhaps Justice Kennedy might actually read the U.S. Constitution. It states that "We the People of the United States...secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Where does that call for extending such rights of American citizens to enemy foreign combatants during war? Where does Article I, Section. 9. Clause 2 of the Constitution say enemy combatant Jihadists at Guantanamo Bay have a "Get Out of Jail Free" pass from the Constitutional clause that allows the government to suspend habeas corpus when "the public Safety may require it"?

The Supreme Court ruling will allow foreign enemy combatants the right to appeal their detention to U.S. civilian courts, and perhaps obtain their release back to attack America again. While the existing military trials are to continue, if such enemy combatants are convicted, analysts have stated that they will also be to appeal their convictions to civilian courts as well. Some 270 enemy combatants are currently held at Guantanamo Bay. As dissenting Justice Scalia stated in his dissenting opinion, "[a]t least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield...These, mind you, were detainees whom the military had concluded were not enemy combatants." (Justice Scalia Dissenting Opinion, pp.3,4).

Supreme Court Justice Kennedy writes what may be the epitaph for an America in mass denial regarding the global threat of Jihad when he states regarding the enemy combatants: "none is a citizen of a nation now at war with the United States." Over seven years after the 9/11 attacks, how could there be any American citizen that completely uninformed about the world and the transnational Jihadist threat? Justice Kennedy also goes on to whine that the enemy combatants have been held in "the duration of a conflict that, if measured from September 11, 2001, to the present, is already among the longest wars in American history." (Justice Kennedy Majority Opinion, page 41). His written contradiction is staggering - on the one hand he claims that the enemy combatants are not a "citizen of a nation now at war" but on the other hand that the "conflict" under which they are being held is "among the longest wars in American history." Of course, Justice Kennedy has no idea who or what America is fighting. What is he doing holding a high office in the U.S. government, over 7 years after 9/11?



The Deafening Silence of the Public and the Braying of the Spin Media

There should be crowds of people protesting outside the Supreme Court building with placards demanding "Never Again, Never Forget." There should be pundits in every newspaper and every television channel denouncing the Supreme Court's decision. There should be calls for the impeachment of the Supreme Court justices in the majority who made this ruling. But for the most part, with the exception of few outraged commentators, there is a deafening, sickening silence, even a defeated, resigned acquiescence. Much of the nation is already accepting such defeats, and moving on with the mundane aspects of life. After all, there is nothing they can do about it. It is "somebody else's problem."

Moreover, the mainstream media has it all figured out - it is "George Bush's problem"... the mantra that has been drummed into the public media and airwaves for the past 7 years every time a difficult, unpleasant reality had to be faced... Bush, the convenient scapegoat for the media to enable denial about global Jihad.

The mainstream media has its bizarro-world spin on the vulgarity of giving American constitutional rights to foreign enemy combatants during wartime:
-- New York Times: "Justice 5, Brutality 4"
-- New York Times: "court repudiated the fundamental legal basis for the Bush administration’s strategy"
-- Washington Post front page: "The Supreme Court rules Bush can't trash American values"
-- Washington Post's Eugene Robinson: "the high court made clear that the Decider has no authority to trash the fundamental principles of American jurisprudence"
-- Associated Press: "Court says detainees have rights, bucking Bush"
-- CNN: "Watch how the 5-4 ruling is a major blow for the Bush administration"
-- and last, but not least, to prove that the some on the right can be as blind as some on the left...
-- Washington Times: "War position shapes lawmakers' view of ruling"... "Whether politicians considered Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detainees a victory for terrorists or for the Constitution was largely determined by their substantive stance on the war in Iraq."

That's correct, the right-wing Washington Times believes whether or not it makes sense to extend American constitutional rights to foreign enemy combatants during war -- depends on your "stance on the war in Iraq." Unless, of course, like the left-wing, you want to blame it all on George Bush.

Does anyone remember that on 9/11 that Jihadists killed Americans, regardless of our political leanings, and before the war in Iraq? In 2001?


Don't You Know There's A War On?

I remember the moment, years ago, that I stared into the abyss of what was the World Trade Center in New York City... thinking God Help Us. Although we here in Washington DC also had our tragedy with the attack on the Pentagon that also left an undeniable scar of war on our landscape, seeing the abyss of what was once the World Trade Center was so painfully graphic, how could any person not know we were at war? How could anyone be that blind? I remember thinking that a photograph of the remains of the World Trade Center should be posted in every public building and the office of every senior official - so that they never, never forget we are at war. But they have indeed forgotten. Images of 9/11 are now just fodder for fringe conspiracy theorists. The travesty of the latest Supreme Court decision sets a historical precedent of how much the mortal threat of Jihad against America has faded like a bad memory in the collective consciousness of our governmental leadership, and the memory of many, perhaps most, of the public. So, I have sent a photograph of it to Justice Kennedy to remind him of the consequences of ignoring the mortal threat of Jihad.

Yet Justice Kennedy and his cadre of Supreme Court Justices aren't the only ones who have lost the plot on the war of Jihadists against America. Today, U.S. Defense Secretary Gates again calls for patience with Pakistan, as the Taliban and their fellow Jihadists continue to declare war on the United States, exacting their form of Sharia justice on Pakistanis, and U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson seeks us to give another $750 million to a Pakistan area largely controlled by the Taliban. Two weeks ago, on May 31, DHS' Daniel Sutherland was giving a videoconference from the State Department to other government agencies to make sure that they don't use the term "jihad" as part of the new "terror lexicon."

America continues to face a reality truly stranger than any possible fiction... a bad dream from which our nation desperately needs to awaken.

[i]Don't You Know There's A War On?

Indeed, they don't - certainly not a global war by Jihadists. That remains the problem. That is why we can't identify the enemy as more than "extremists," and that is why we can't get government leadership to develop a global strategy against Jihad. When it comes to Jihad and its ideological basis, they just don't know there's a war on.

They know that there is military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that's the extent of the issue. The larger, global war of Jihadists against all of humanity is not comprehended by multiple levels of American governmental leadership. The war of Jihadists in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East... these are all "isolated incidents" and "regional concerns" to a mindset that simply sees no imminent threat by Jihadists or Islamic supremacist ideology. This blindness goes down to the individual citizen level. Instead of being concerned about what petrodollars would do to fund the enemy during war, many American citizens are only concerned about whether gasoline is $4.00 a gallon or not.


Mass Denial Leads to an Increasingly Vulnerable America

So in this state of mass denial, it is not surprising to see such a vulgar slur by the Supreme Court against our fallen soldiers fighting against Jihadists that also disgraces the memories of those murdered by Jihadists on the American homeland.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia provides a synopsis of the consequences of such disgraceful denial (Scalia Dissenting Opinion, page 2):

"America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60-61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed."

"The game of bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the Nation's Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. That consequence would be tolerable if necessary to preserve a time-honored legal principle vital to our constitutional Republic. But it is this Court's blatant abandonment of such a principle that produces the decision today."

Justice Kennedy symbolizes the state of mass denial about Jihad when he states regarding the enemy combatants "none is a citizen of a nation now at war with the United States."

Tell that to the victims of the next attack on America.

Because anyone involved in knowingly releasing a Jihadist to successfully kill Americans in the future will be an accomplice in their murder.


Sources and Related Documents:

United States Constitution
June 12, 2008 - Supreme Court Slip Decision: Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al.
June 12, 2008 - CNN: Justices: Gitmo detainees can challenge detention in U.S. courts
June 12, 2008 - AP: Court says detainees have rights, bucking Bush
June 12, 2008 - AP: Detainee ruling triggers scramble among DC judges
June 13, 2008 - Justices side with the enemy - by Joseph Farah
June 13, 2008 - The United States Supreme Court Versus America: Awarding "The Privilege of Habeas Corpus To Terrorists" - by Hugh Hewitt
June 13, 2008 - FOX News: Supreme Court Allows Guantanamo Prisoners to Challenge Detention in U.S. Courts
June 13, 2008 - FOX News: 'Special Report' Panel on Supreme Court Ruling on Al Qaeda Detainees and U.S. Progress With the Iraq War
June 13, 2008 - Washington Times: War position shapes lawmakers' view of ruling
June 13, 2008 - New York Times: Justice 5, Brutality 4
June 13, 2008 - Washington Post: A Victory for the Rule of the Law - by Eugene Robinson
June 13, 2008 - Reuters: Rules have changed for Guantanamo trials: lawyers
June 13, 2008 - AFP: US justice chief says Guantanamo trials to proceed
9/11 Aftermath of Attack on World Trade Center West Tower (Image) - September 21, 2001
9/11 Aftermath of Attack on Pentagon
Wikipedia: Boumediene v. Bush
Wikipedia: Guantanamo captives' appeals in Washington DC Courts
Wikipedia: Habeas Corpus
Wikipedia: Detainee Treatment Act of 2005
Wikipedia: Suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War and Reconstruction
Wikipedia: Suspension of Habeas Corpus during World War II and its aftermath
Wikipedia: Suspension of Habeas Corpus in the United States in 1990s and 2000s



« Close It

June 13, 2008 11:00 PM Link

The Campaign cry needs to be, "MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUNSHINES!"

The Supreme Court Wins, America Loses
By: Henry Mark Holzer
The nation’s highest court deals a heavy blow to national security. More>

Gitmo


THE EDITORS: All hail the imperial court. “Combating the Combatants Decision” 06/13 1:30 PM

PETER WEHNER: If John McCain is wise he’ll make this decision a focal point of the presidential race. “Supreme Disgrace” 06/13 11:50 AM

We are at war with Jihadism as we were at war with Communism. Almost everyone finally recognized what an
Ignorant Idea that was. Must we go through the same thing again? It is little more than a throw-back to the Christian Crusades.

Gitmo Ruling Enters The Election: 'One Of The Worst Decisions' In History

Court: Constitution Applies to Detainees Jonathan Hafetz: The Supreme Court delivers another blow to the President's lawless detention policies and affirms Guantánamo Bay detainees' rights to constitutional protections.

John Nichols: Political Impact of Gitmo Decision

News Analysis
Justices Come Under Election-Year Spotlight
By LINDA GREENHOUSE A Supreme Court decision on habeas corpus for detainees at Guantánamo has become a conservative rallying point overnight.

• Detainee Lawyers to Use Ruling to Mount New Attacks

I hope the Obama Campaign will (as soon as feasible) make explicit that the US of A is not at war
with any Entity called Terriorists or Terriorism or any Soverign Nation and that we are declaring
an International Cease Fire and expecting the United Nations to enforce it when the US-UN Contract
expires in Iraq.

War Powers Why This Court Keeps Rebuking This President
New York Times - 17 hours ago
McCain Takes Gitmo Ruling Personally CBS News

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY: Boumediene has produced a crisis that demands an immediate fix. “A Quick Way Forward After Boumediene” 06/16 6:00 AM

Q&A: Kyndra Miller Rotunda knows Guantanamo Bay. “Major Legal Issues” 06/16 4:00 AM

THE EDITORS: All hail the imperial court. “Combating the Combatants Decision” 06/13 1:30 PM

PETER WEHNER: If John McCain is wise he’ll make this decision a focal point of the presidential race. “Supreme Disgrace” 06/13 11:50 AM

Beyond Boumediene
Scott Lemieux
June 16, 2008 | web only
The Supreme Court's decision in the most recent enemy combatant case is another victory in the fight against the Bush administration's overreaching claims of executive powers.

But it is also a reminder that Roe v. Wade is far from the only area of law in which treasured constitutional protections are hanging by a thread.

Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court during the oral arguments for Boumediene v. Bush. (AP Photo)

Boumediene v. Bush, Another View -- Judicial Oversight of Terrorist Detainment Essential to Freedom

By Jonathan Winer


Jeffrey Imm's passionate denunciation of the majority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush, published here, takes vigorous exception to the principle that the federal courts should have the right to analyze the detention of persons that a U.S. executive authority has deemed to be "unlawful foreign enemy combatants."

For others, and I am among them, the principle that is being vindicated in this decision is fundamental to protecting our liberty, namely, the right of each person to have fully independent oversight of an authority's decision to hold them in prison.

The Boumediene decision rejects the ludicrous position of the Administration that the U.S. does not have sovereign control over the prisons of Guantanemo, but that Cuba does. If the U.S chooses to run a prison and hold people at a location, entirely under the control of the U.S., it is deny reality to suggest that the U.S. is not exercising "sovereignty" over those prisoners. (More importantly, it is to deny a wrongly-imprisoned person any recourse. As a former Executive branch official involved with federal law enforcement, I can state the obvious -- governments actually do make mistakes, and when mistakes are made, they even sometimes try to cover them up.) As the U.S., and no other authority, is holding them prisoner, the question boils down to whether there should be judicial review of the decision to hold the person prisoner, or if the executive should have the right to set the rules for any review of its own conduct in holding them.

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Justice Scalia takes the view that independent judicial review of the executive's decision will cause terrorists to succeed in more terrorist attacks, citing the finding of five Senators in a minority report not joined in by the Senate majority, 30 prisoners already released from Guantanamo by the U.S. military have already have reportedly returned to terrorism. This Senate Minority Report finding is in turn based not on independent fact-finding, but on a 2007 CNN report citing Pentagon spokesmen for the number.

A counter to the Pentagon contention cited by Justice Scalia and the five Senators from the minority is a journalistic investigation into terrorism suspects held at U.S. prison camps around the world which recently found that possibly hundreds had been wrongly imprisoned. The eight-month investigation in 11 countries on three continents undertaken by McClatchy publications, reported June 14, found that the U.S. wrongfully imprisoned suspects in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of "flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments." McClatchy said it interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials, primarily in Afghanistan and several U.S. officials and former officials as well as thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records. The McClatchy report included the following disturbing admission: "As far as intelligence value from those in Gitmo, I got tired of telling the people writing reports based on their interrogations that their material was essentially worthless," a U.S. intelligence officer said in an e-mail.

Justice Scalia's prediction that granting detainees habeas corpus rights will lead to more terrorist attacks seems to rely on the premise that his fellow federal judges will willy-nilly release terrorists from confinement, when the U.S. military would have continued to hold them. Evidence for that proposition is not cited by Justice Scalia, beyond a parade of imagined horribles relating to the difficulty of trying people based on classified information. Perhaps that is why we call it "an opinion."

Clearly, some number of those held at Guantamano are dangerous terrorists indeed; but in that case, what threat is a habeas petition? As the Senate found in its consideration of the Bush Administration's handling of the Guantanamo military tribunal system, "the critics’ assertion that habeas proceedings in federal court will somehow lead to the sharing of classified information with terrorists demeans our federal judiciary and ignores the procedures established by this body to insure that classified information is safeguarded in federal proceedings. All federal judges are cleared to view classified information, and they have significant discretion in determining what kinds of evidence to consider, and what witnesses, if any, to allow, in habeas proceedings, which lack many of the protections for defendants present in actual trials. Many detainee habeas claims could therefore be resolved with no recourse to classified documents at all after a determination by a judge that such evidence is not needed to make the baseline showing that the detainee is properly held. Where classified evidence is relevant, courts and judges are well-equipped to deal with such evidence without compromising national security. A distinguished group of former federal judges noted in a letter to Congress [in 2006] that the federal courts have long effectively and efficiently handled habeas complaints and cases involving classified and top secret information, and that ‘‘the habeas statute and rules provide federal judges ample tools for controlling and safeguarding the flow of information in court."

The majority opinion takes a longer view, and one that recognizes that our country has repeatedly come under threat while retaining its commitment to maintaining freedom. In the words of Justice Kennedy, "Officials charged with daily operational responsibility for our security may consider a judicial discourse on the history of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 and like matters to be far removed from the Nation’s present, urgent concerns. Established legal doctrine, however, must be consulted for its teaching. Remote in time it may be; irrelevant to the present it is not. Security depends upon a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and the ability of our Armed Forces to act and to interdict. There are further considerations, however. Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers. It is from these principles that the judicial authority to consider petitions for habeas corpus relief derives. Our opinion does not undermine the Executive’s powers as Commander in Chief. On the contrary, the exercise ofthose powers is vindicated, not eroded, when confirmed by the Judicial Branch. Within the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person. Some of these petitioners have been incustody for six years with no definitive judicial determination as to the legality of their detention. Their access to the writ is a necessity to determine the lawfulness of their status, even if, in the end, they do not obtain the relief they seek."

Rule of law is a fundamental means of protecting freedom; we are stronger for judicial oversight of the war on terrorism and of individuals accused of terrorism, not weaker.


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June 16, 2008 01:37 PM Link

JOANNE MARINER What Boumediene Means FindLaw columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner discusses the importance of the Supreme Court's recent, controversial split decision regarding Guantanamo detainees. As Mariner explains, the Court held that the detainees have the right to challenge their detention via a fair process in federal court, and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which had stripped the detainees of that right, constituted an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Though the Court has now settled one set of questions, Mariner points out that its decision raises others, such as whether Guantanamo will be closed, what the federal court proceedings will look like (and whether secret evidence can be used), whether the ruling will affect ongoing military commission proceedings, and whether prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and secret CIA prisons abroad will have the same rights Guantanamo detainees have now been held to possess. Mariner outlines some possible answers to these questions.
Monday, Jun. 16, 2008


MICHAEL DORF Did the Supreme Court Violate or Vindicate the Constitution in the Latest Guantanamo Bay Decision? The Difference Between Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances FindLaw columnist and Columbia law professor Michael Dorf comments on the Supreme Court's recent, historic split decision holding that the Constitution guarantees the right to invoke the writ of habeas corpus to foreign detainees held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo. Dorf considers the role of ideology in the Justices' split, and contends that the split also reflects a methodological split, between formalism and a more practical approach. In addition, he explains how the distinct concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances informed the Justices' reasoning here, as they considered whether the federal courts provided a necessary check on the Executive in this context.

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