Overplaying Its Hand

Mr rastuso3,
If we deny constitutional rights of habeas corpus to anybody under US custody (for example, non-citizens), then:
1) these rights will be denied to everybody, even you. How would you prove that you're not an enemy combatant and you're US citizen, if you're denied access to the court of law?
2) US won't be able to contest any detention of an US citizen by any rogue government. They'll say: your country itself allows holding non-citizen without access to legal councel and court. So go F yourselves

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."
For rastus03 and those that hold similar position, this may appear "liberal". But this passage from the Declaration of Independence does not stipulate that rights go only to those born in this country. It speaks directly to who we strive to be; beyond the influence of others, beyond the random happenstance of where and to whom anyone is born.
It is about who we are, not who "they" are.
The founders of our country were quite clear and vehement about the "liberal" foundations of democracy. They intended us to be Leaders, not followers. They intended that we have strength and courage, to hold our values in the face of danger and adversity, not cowards who abandon our principals because "others" don't share them.
It was the Conservatives that held that America should be ruled by divine right.. pay taxes without representation, buckle to the whims of kings..
They were cowards and hypocrites, and apparently still are.

Releasing these terrorists is one more failure for surely they will kill more innocent A mericans.If we can't even hang them when catch them what,s the point of fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.Just hang them!!!.

To people like rastus03...you should have been born in Germany in 1933,thats the kind of world you would like...people like you are sick and need help.....

STUPID RIGHT WING NUTS

Send them to Texas. There they can start a religion that exempts them from following the laws of the country, build their ranch and live off the food stamps.

The Bush administration dragged its feet so long, THAT'S what cued the court. Had they expedited the cases, there would ;have likely been no lawsuit.

Well, Spacer, let's see. We released 500 detainees and you say that thirty of those joined an army against us. That leaves 470 people that we had no cause to imprison, so we let them go. Is it your theory that we should have wrongfully continued to imprison 470 people along with the thirty just to keep 30 from joining an army against us? Wrongfully imprisoning only one person is not consistent with our constitution. How can wrongfully imprisoning 470 people make any sense? This seems to have been Justice Alito's theory when he wrote in his dissent that there was some evidence that 30 released detainees had turned against us. All I can deduce from this is that he will hold a crowd in jail just in case one of them might get out and go bad. And I see by your blog that you buy it, too. We are all very fortunate that Justice Alito was in the minority in this case.

Overplayed his hand, indeed. What Mr. Bush did was to ignore the US Constitution, Article 1, and a foundational principle of our common law - Habeas Corpus. It was instituted as far back as 1305 to protect people from the tyranny of rulers. George Bush's real legacy will be his tyranny.

The military has already released more than 500 detainees for a variety of reasons; most have gone back to their native countries, though there is some evidence that more than 30 have shown up as combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan and some have killed innocent people.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's less than 10% of those released after years of incarceration who committed terrorist acts. And I wonder how many of those 30 who were terrorists when they were released had not been terrorists when they were first sent to Guantanamo. Some of them could well have been innocent men radicalized by the abuse they received there.

This notion of an "unlawful enemy combatant" is a legal fiction that the Bush regime concocted to create a twilight zone between the designation of detainees as criminal suspects subject to the judicial process and prisoners of war, which do not have the right of habeus corpus but do have rights under the Geneva Convention. And in that legal twilight zone, torture and other crimes against humanity have been perpetrated by our own government.

There is no "War against Terror" except in the metaphorical sense. Wars are fought between nations, and Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are not nations; they are bands of murdering criminals and should be treated as such -- that is, those who've been proven guilty by the normal legal processes.

I hope this Supreme Court ruling will miss up Bush's planned show trials of 9/11 suspects in his kangaroo court at Guantanamo. The trials were scheduled to be held just before the presidential election and were clearly intended to influence the outcome on John McCain's behalf. It's no wonder that McCain was squawking in outrage about the Supreme Court's decision.

The rights granted in the Constitution, specifically the right of habeas corpus, do not apply to "citizens" - they apply to "persons" - citizen or not. The Constitution says the right to habeas shall not be revoked except in cases of invasion or insurrection, neither of which obtains in the instant case. Only an idiot - or someone with a transparent agenda - would advance a legal argument to the contrary.

They are not prisoners of war (POW) under international law because they are not the military of a State (government).
The International Red Cross has a discussion of this and why they are not POW's.

Even then we are required to meet our obligations towards them under human rights laws, which as far as I can tell by reading the military tribunal documentation on the web, we do meet.

Wisdom of the founders. Better have at least one branch of government not dependent on votes to forestall injustice. We taught the world how to protect individual freedom with our constitution. It is unforgivable for our president, who should know better than any citizen how to protect individual freedom, to treat the law with such contempt. He blew it and the court finally had to tell him. The law applies the same to all people, no matter how hard the facts. This is when our own freedom is either kept or lost forever. Once the wrong decision is made by the court, you need not only to focus on the hard criminals at hand but you need to consider that this is the same law that your local constable will wield on you and your family. The writ of habeas corpus is what keeps him from holding you indefinitely without a hearing. The decision protects you just as much as the detainees. Once the power of abuse is given, it will be used by all.

Everyone seems to be blaming everyone else, except the terrorists. Wake-Up America. The anarchistic zeal of radical muslim terrorists hate all christians and all jews. Muslim terrorists commenced this senseless killing to attempt to rule the world according to their beliefs and they will continue killing until they are stopped.

katanao182, there's a lot of sense to what you say and if the Bush administration had done this from the start they would've avoided most of this mess. If it's a war, why are they not POWs? Yet, when you say "hold them until the War on Terror is over", I have a problem. Who makes the decision it is over? How does one tell? Look at history, bombings, political assasinations, guerrilla tactics keep on happening between traditional, declared wars. They will always happen somewhere and they will never stop. They haven't stopped since before the Roman Empire. The POWS who haven't committed war criimes spend their lives in prison? .

Gosh, beginning to sound like the Supreme Court remembers their job is to uphold the Constitution! I love my country for which it stands, and I am proud of the 5 justices who are loyal to the Constitution and do not bow to political pressures.

When the Supremes, driven by the Conservative Branch, took the 2000 election out of the voters hands and decided it for us, they were just doing what was necessary. When, after several years of detention without even minimalist progress toward a finding of guilt, the Supremes tell the Administration to 'put up or shut up', suddenly this is deemed a power grab by the Conservatives. Seems the labels for the actions are correct--just reversed is all.