The S.C. just issued the opinion. It doesn't seem that anyone has read the full case yet, but some excerpts are available. The vote broke down with Kennedy siding with the detainees.

I haven't read the case yet, but it seems that the ruling requires the detainees have habeas corpus rights which cannot be suspended without using the Constitution's procedures to suspend habeas. Anyway, it is a loss for the government.

Here's the opinions: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/06-1195.pdf

Here's a summary/analysis as the opinion[s] are read:

I don't even know how this was in question. I'm starting to like Kennedy now, though.

Not that any of this will change anything. The motto of this administration (and the last few Congresses) has been "The rules don't apply to me."

There are few issues more cut-and-dry than habeas-fucking-corpus, one of the oldest and most fundamental of basic human rights. The exceptions in the Constitution are VERY specific.

And Scalia proves once again that he is ginormous douche bag.

I'm not sure which is more worrying: the fact that this actually had to go to the supreme fucking court, or the fact that it was split 5-4!

Look at who the 4 dissenters are. They represent one of the biggest reasons not to vote for McCain and have him replace one of the other 5 with another Scalia or Thomas.

This case is hardly cut and dry; two branches of government thought this process was legitimate and it involved non-American enemy combatants caught on foreign soil and detained outside of the United States proper. Scalia actually agreed with you when an American was involved. See Hamdi v. Rumsfeld where he brings up Constitutional measures that must be invoked to suspend habeas corpus.

Actually, the "two branches of government," both run by Republicans at the time, ALSO thought it was legitimate to suspend habeas corpus for American citizens, a case that you cite that the SCOTUS also overturned. Was that not cut-and-dry either, suspending habeas corpus for American citizens despite failing to meet the Constitutional exceptions? After all, two branches of Congress thought it was okay.

As for Scalia, he stated on this particular ruling that "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” For you the supposed anti-judicial-activism guy and supposed libertarian (snicker), is that really the standard by which you want the judges to confirm or overturn laws?

Fallout. From Politico:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed Thursday to do everything in his power to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying that, “if necessary,” he would push for a constitutional amendment to modify the decision.

A former military prosecutor, Graham blasted the decision as “irresponsible and outrageous,” echoing the sentiments of many congressional Republicans and President Bush.

Earlier in the day, the court ruled 5-4 that suspected terrorists held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in federal court.

When talking to reporters Thursday afternoon, Graham cautioned that it he was still digesting the decision but said he was “looking at every way I can to modify this position,” including fighting to change the statute.

“The American people are going to wake up tomorrow and be shocked to hear that a member of Al Qaeda has the same constitutional rights as an American citizen,” said Graham.

“[Even] the Nazis never had that right.”

The Torture Party's disdain for human rights really knows no bounds.

I can see it now. The Constitution: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

The Lindsay Graham Amendment: "Or if a Republican president just feels like it."

More fallout. From Sen. Leahy:

" There is nothing more fundamental than the right of habeas corpus. In three separate decisions, the Supreme Court in recent years has rejected this administration’s erosion of fundamental rights. These protections set the United States apart from those who wish to harm us. This decision echoes earlier court opinions that have solidified our constitutional system of checks and balances. The administration has rolled back essential rights that have long guided our nation’s conscience.

Today’s Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush is a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration’s flawed detention policies, and a vindication for those who have also argued from the beginning that it was unwise as well as unconstitutional.

A majority of the Court has ruled that provisions in the 2006 Military Commissions Act designed to strip away all habeas rights for detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center are unconstitutional. The Court has ruled that the Constitutional right to habeas corpus extends to territories, including Guantanamo Bay, where the United States exercises de facto control. The Court further held that the administration’s detention procedures were constitutionally inadequate, and that those detainees who have been determined to be “unlawful enemy combatants” are entitled to seek habeas relief in Federal court.

The Court’s 5-4 decision sustains the long-held and bipartisan beliefs that I and others have always maintained: Congress made a grave error when, for the first time in its history, it voted to strip habeas corpus rights, instead leaving in place hopelessly flawed procedures to determine whether detainees can be held indefinitely with no meaningful court review merely by the Executive’s decree."

The Hamdi case was cut and dry, I will agree. It was also properly decided. In fact, I would side with the Scalia/Steven's concurrence within that decesion as the most proper.

Your judicial activism "point" makes little sense. I side (mostly) with the government in this case and that makes my anti-activism internally coherent. I am not for permanently holding enemy combatants and they should have a right to challenge their detention, which the Detainee Treatment Act allowed. My disagreement is with the Supreme Court claiming extra-territorial jurisdiction.

You agree with the dissenting opinion, which stated its objections that "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." I can only imagine the outcry of "judicial-activism!" if they overturned gun rights laws based on such reasoning. Is that really what you regard as a legitimate standard for the court to decide the Constitutionality of the law?

And when you combine the two cases, in which the courts made roughly the same decision, there is no coherence. As usual, you're not simply disagreeing with the decision, you're contending the role of the courts. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly you think the role of the courts should be. You previously described the California courts on the issue of gay marriage as "political elites dictating public policy." Which is sad in and of itself. But why would they be political elites dictating public policy in overturning one law but not the other?

Near as I can tell, the only consistency is "If Kidrock69x agrees with the decision, then it's not judicial activism. If Kidrock69x does not agree, then it is judicial activism."

First of all, you mistake the dicta for what would have been the holding (if he was assigned the opinion and was in the majority) in Scalia's dissent. His main point is that habeas rights had never been extended, at English common law, to enemy combatants captured on foreign soil.

Second, Hamdi was about a an American citizen detained and then brought to the United States where he was denied habeas rights. He was in an actual place where the Constitution is in force and has traditionally been in force. That is why I feel this case was decided correctly.

Boumediene is not an American and is not being held in the United States. He is being held at Guantanamo Bay. It is not clear the the Constitution ever meant that it was to be applied to foreigners in foreign areas.

The cases tackle two different issues. One is about Americans in America and the other is aliens in foreign lands. They are not essentially the same case.

Actually, it doesn't tackle two different issues. Gitmo is considered American soil by any reasonable standard, and the courts decided thusly. Contrary to what the spewing wingnut "the courts have killed us all!" media would have you believe the ruling explicitly does NOT apply to foreign detainees on foreign soil. But Gitmo is not foreign soil.

Beeble, yes it does. Using your logic, any area that the U.S. holds a prisoner, is by extension "U.S. territory" because the country exercises control of that area. Justice Kennedy seems to go that far in his opinion.


Boumediene at 49.

McCain's reponse. And it is truly sad.

"The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Sen. Graham and Sen. Lieberman and I had worked very hard to make sure that we didn't torture any prisoners, that we didn't mistreat them, that we abided by the Geneva Conventions, which applies to all prisoners. But we also made it perfectly clear, and I won't go through all the legislation we passed, and the prohibition against torture, but we made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have. And my friends there are some bad people down there. There are some bad people. So now what are we going to do. We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate, because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases. By the way, 30 of the people who have already been released from Guantanamo Bay have already tried to attack America again, one of them just a couple weeks ago, a suicide bomber in Iraq. Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation, and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that."

Your first obligation is to uphold the Constitution, asshole.

No, using my logic, US soil is US soil. Gitmo is US soil. It means exactly what Kennedy says it means. A US Embassy, for example, is US soil. This is not new or novel, unless of course your interest is in circumventing the application of basic human rights. Which, what do you know, it is.

But how much you wanna bet that if Gitmo got attacked by terrorists, especially under a Democratic president, the wingnuts would suddenly find their way to regarding it as US territory?

Why do you always end up saying things like that? Is it not possible for you to disagree with someone and not find them an asshole?

Sure. In this case? No. The guy wants to be president and doesn't understand his first and most basic obligation. He's either ignorant, lying, or pandering to his rabid base of numbnuts.

For bonus points, he goes on to mention "unaccountable judges." Ugh. Yes. he's being an asshole.

Perhaps because there are U.S. troops stationed at Gitmo that would presumably be the ones injured in such an attack?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? Perhaps if you said that detainees were killed in a terrorist attack at Gitmo, your point would make more sense, although it would still fail.

Like always Beeble, you miss the point, I was speaking of a detention facility in a foreign country, say Iraq. Kennedy's reasoning clearly leads to the conclusion that the facility would be regarded as de facto U.S. territory and therefore would warrant Constitutional protections to those held at such a prison. It seems fair from the case that any combatant held by the U.S., anywhere, is owed a habeas petition in a federal court.

The Constitution, I should point out, does not make a difference between citizens and noncitizens. All "persons" are protected.

Here's what Obama, who graduated top of his class of Harvard Law School and who taught Constitutional law for many years, had to say about the opinion:

"Today's Supreme Court decision ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice, while also protecting our core values. The Court's decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain. This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy. We cannot afford to lose any more valuable time in the fight against terrorism to a dangerously flawed legal approach. I voted against the Military Commissions Act because its sloppiness would inevitably lead to the Court, once again, rejecting the Administration's extreme legal position. The fact is, this Administration's position is not tough on terrorism, and it undermines the very values that we are fighting to defend. Bringing these detainees to justice is too important for us to rely on a flawed system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9-11 attacks, and compromised our core values."

Do you seriously not understand the difference between US soil and foreign soil? Seriously? A detention facility in a foreign country that is not on a US base (US soil) is not "under the complete and total control of our government." This is really, really basic stuff.

Beeble, I agree that there is a difference, but Justice Kennedy, if you read the portion of his opinion that I highlighted, seems to disagree with you. The impact of the holding seems to be that regardless of the location of any enemy combatant, they are owed habeas rights. Kennedy is arguing that having de facto control of territory means that Constitutional procedures must be used in that area.

He does nothing of the kind. He specifically says "under the complete and total control of our Government." That is about as far from "de facto" control as you could legally define. He is talking about US soil. Gitmo is US soil. A warehouse in downtown Baghdad is not US soil. See the difference?

Frankly, I hope I'm the only one who recognizes the depths of deliberate obtuseness that the right-wing has gone to just to deny other people basic human rights.

Beeble, a prison ran by the United States that is on foreign soil is clearly under the "complete and total control" of the United States, regardless of whether or not the land is formally the U.S.'s under a treaty or via statehood.

The farthest from "de facto" that I could legally define would be "de jure" (or the perhaps opposite; the absence of any control) hence I used the phrase "de facto" because the land is not legally that of the U.S. but is still under it's complete control and domination.

Would you agree that this decesion would be without teeth if it actually led to the conclusion that you draw, i.e., that as long as prisoners are on foreign soil, though detained by the U.S., they are without habeas rights?

A prison run by the US is not necessarily US soil, particularly if it is the property of a sovereign government. Even if the government in question is ineffectual and/or inept, that territory would fall short of absolute and total control of the US. It would be like a merchant renting a space in a shopping center. The merchant may run his business however he wants, but he is still not the owner of the property and is subject to the bylaws and discretion of the landlord.



The decision specifically affects Gitmo, so it has all the teeth it needs and is meant to have if it re-instates habeas corpus rights to the prisoners held there. It's a significant progress that affects hundreds of detainees, even if it doesn't extend those rights to every prisoner held by anyone anywhere.

I personally think that it should be the policy of the US government to extend basic human rights, including protection of the Geneva Conventions to ALL detainees in US custody.

The reasons for that include cases like this:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html

Justice is about protecting the innocent as much if not more than punishing the guilty.

GARDEZ, Afghanistan — The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

They shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is great — as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar's head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face.

Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."

But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.

"He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government," a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.