Supreme Court Rules Against President Bush in Case About Terrorism Prisone

[liveoaktx]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBD8BPQ0WD.html

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that prisoners seized as potential terrorists and held for more than two years in Cuba may challenge their captivity in American courts, a defeat for President Bush in one of the first major cases arising from the Sept. 11 attacks.
The 6-to-3 ruling passes no judgment on the guilt or innocence of the approximately 600 foreign-born men held in the Navy-run prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The justices also did not address the broad issues of human rights and civil liberties surrounding the prisoners' seizure and detention without trial or guaranteed access to a lawyer.

For now, the high court said only that the men can take the first legal step in contesting U.S. authority to hold them.

The men can now presumably take their complaints to a U.S. federal judge, even though they are physically held beyond U.S. borders.

[skooooo]

1. ..the ruling also says..

....American citizens can be held without being charged with a crime. This is no great victory for anyone but the fascists.

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. You can be held TODAY...

...without being charged, by your local police, for up to 72 hours.

Nothing changed with this ruling.

Except that what you can do -- go to a US court and compel the government to show cause why you should be held -- can now be done by the Gitmo detainees, and by Hamdi.

[struggle4progress]

6. I think you are wrong: I think SCOTUS is allowing POTUS ...

... to hold you indefinitely as an "enemy combatant" without charges or trial -- but is (contrary to the Bushistas desire) allowing you access to court to challenge the "enemy combatant" designation. So I think something DID change with this ruling: you just lost the right to a TRIAL, although you retain some weakened due process rights.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I need to read the ruling but I read it the way the ACLU

read it,

Yuo can be held for a determinate time as a special witness, things like that.

This is why this is such a defeat for bush, but I need to find the actual ruling and seat down with a cup of coffee

[AZCat]

9. Actual ruling here---->Link

Go to Supreme Court Recent Decisions and click on the link (warning: pdf file).

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Thanks

downloading the three decisions... oh and for the record

they read the court well for a change, when they said that
they were about to be handed a defeat

[Beetwasher]

2. Whew!

The initial spinning on this story was a bit scary. This does indeed seem like a partial defeat for the fascists.

[liveoaktx]

3. 3 parts-one, the foreign *terrrorists* being held in Gitmo Bay

and the Govt arguing that they didn't have jurisdiction over that part, thus could prevent them from having their day in court. SCOTUS says, nope, US DOES have jurisdiction.

Second part (and third) with Padilla and the other US Citizen) seems like a wipe hands to me, turning it back over to the lower courts, who have already ruled on this. Will the lower court say that someone is no longer entitled to a speedy trial and being held without charges? Doubt it.

SCOTUS, I believe, has wussed out a lot lately, but probably a good thing.

[PaDUer]

5. MSNBC said they're awaiting

a comment from * regarding this soon.

[leQ]

8. i'm listening to the hamdi proceedings on cspan2 now

and the way i'm reading it, disregarding msnbc's crawl about the court already deciding that the government can hold detainees without charging them, the bushististas are attempting to use 'wartime' excuses, while not defining when 'wartime' will expire. i'll have to delve into the actual text to see for myself, since like a previous poster noted, the spin on this is makin me awfully dizzy already.

either way, habeas is the most fundamental part of democracy. attacking that is most certainly a nail in the coffin of liberty.

it's one thing if clinton were in there using the same arguments, because we are afterall, at war. but with clinton, you'd know that this war wouldn't be going on forever.

[PaDUer]

10. "war president"

that's what * calls himself because it's "wartime".