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Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Supreme Court Decides

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7451139.stm Foreign suspects held in Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in US civilian courts, the US Supreme Court has ruled. How does a poseur like Justice Scalia make up his mind on such questions? Flip a coin? Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who voted against the ruling, warned that "it sets our military commanders the impossible task of proving in a civilian court ... that evidence supports the confinement of each and every prisoner". No. Justice Scalia decides the case based on the assumed impossibility of proving that evidence supports confinement. He becomes an activist judge, assumes he knows that such recourse to courts will increase American fatalities in the future (!??), and just sort of wings it. Proving the evidence supports confinement is not impossible.If it does not support, then the prisoner is released. If it supports, the prisoner remains. Justice Scalia apparently wants the military commanders to decide and never have that decision adjudicated. Nonsense. And which miltary commanders is he referring to? The soi-disant Warlord Bush? If the government has no task of proving that confinement is justified, you have a situation like that in Guantanamo where people are held forever with no charges being brought. Bush says the government will review the decision and see whether further legislation is necessary. Fat chance of that. This Congress will not support your mad dash to authoritarianism. I wonder how Clarence Thomas voted. You never know with that deep, deep mind.

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