“It 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.”

Oh, and for those not solely focused on Boumediene, SCOTUS did rule, on the same day and unanimously in fact, in Munaf v. Geren that indeed US citizens abroad in military custody DO retain full habeas corpus rights. Opinion by Chief Justice Roberts.

The big problem here is the extension of Constitutional rights to non-citizens, outside the US (although in controlled territory), against the all prior case law, and the mutual will of both Congress and the executive (to whom the Constitution provides those powers to).

Even the majority, in their ruling, flat out state that no case law exists to support their position, and the attempt to show how this case is different than Eisentrager is very weak and not very persuasive. Even though they try to claim that this ruling is not in conflict, or an overturn, it is by any real definition, and that is very troublesome.

Think about it for a second. Even if you buy their reasoning, SCOTUS has just said that those who attack or otherwise wage war against the US and it's representatives, here and abroad, if done NOT under cover of an uniformed Army, in the guise of a civilian (otherwise known as spies and terrorists), have more rights than soldiers. That indeed is topsy-turvy of history, and the point of the Geneva Convention's protections for soldiers under arms.

Your citing from the past contradicts the administration's argument that new conditions require new rules.
I agree with the administration that rules designed for state-sponsored. uniformed armies can't answer the needs of fighting the likes of Al Qaeda. We have to adjust.
What people like I are contending is that we adjusted to the point of wrecking core principles, Overadjustment. The SC ruling compels us to find a more reasonable adustment, one that doesn't alter who we basically are when it comes to law and humanitarian concerns.

There are risks, no doubt about it. There are always risks in a just society.
There are far greater risks in ceasing to be a just society.

You are definitely right that King John of England, perfect company for people with your mindset, would not approve.

Until yesterday, neither did any other U.S. Supreme or English court of law, for literally hundreds of years of precedence, with absolutely no rulings ever to the contrary, so I am in good company.

Beside saying that the courts have the right to overrule a combined set of rules of the Executive and Legislative branches (remember, they just invalidated laws passed by Congress in specific response to their earlier rulings), they absolutely threw out Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), which held that Germans in American prisons established in Germany had no habeas rights.

From SCOTUSBlog: “Eisentrager’s holding (stated explicitly on several occasions by Justice Jackson) that the Constitution does not empower courts to issue writs of habeas corpus to aliens abroad under any circumstances”.

The majority also freely admitted in their decision that there is absolutely no case law supporting their position in the history of English or American law.

So, those that feared an Imperial Presidency now have a new concern – the Judicial Lords.

Hopefully they will all be released soon. Perhaps they will be given tickets to Obama's inaugural, as a sign of good faith from the new administration. They are, of course, innocents all.

Nothing like a little homicidal rage to start the day, eh Marlow?

Is it really too much to ask that our government prove the guilt of someone they intend to execute or hold in prison indefinitely?

Funny how “conservatives” are so willing to vest enormous power in the government.

How refreshing that you take me to task for only roughly 5 percent of my post. I am flattered.

My wording regarding the detainees who were released was imprecise. Being deemed “innocent” is not the same as being deemed unable to try or being transferred to a defendant's rights Eden like Kuwait. (Cough, cough.)

But the larger point stands.

Yes, it is most regrettable that at least two of those 30 detainees have gone on to do bad things, and there probably are more. But it is beyond outrageous that Scalia cops an attitude that is even more Owellian than the White House in advocating unlimited detention without due process. The man is a thug in a black robe and that you seem to honor him undercuts your credibility.

“He also claimed that 30 detainees who had been voluntarily released from Guantánamo by order of the Bush administration had returned to “the battlefield,” which means that in his mind even people deemed innocent in the administration’s mind are actually guilty. Yes, you read that right.”

To date, I can recall that two of those released from Gitmo have become suicide bombers; one, a Kuwaiti, who protested his innocence and was returned to Kuwait, and who blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Iraq a month or so back…another who blew himself up in Pakistan last year. Both were released upon political pressure being applied…not being deemed “innocent”.

Re: The “innocent” ex-Gitmo suicide bomber…From The Guardian: “The US military opposed his release, saying there was a risk that he presented a continuing danger, but he was freed after being transferred to Kuwait.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/08/gua...

When were these men ever deemed “innocent” by the Bush administration in any proceeding of any sort? They were not, and have not been.

They were, however, deemed innocent … as are all the “prisoners of conscience” of Guantanamo… in the minds of liberals the world over.

Hopefully they will all be released soon. Perhaps they will be given tickets to Obama's inaugural, as a sign of good faith from the new administration. They are, of course, innocents all.