US Supreme Court: Gitmo Prisoners Have Habeus Corpus Rights

This is a major victory for the prisoners and yet another slap in the face from the court to the Bush administration.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
[...]
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."
[...]
It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The ruling could resurrect many detainee lawsuits that federal judges put on hold pending the outcome of the high court case. The decision sent judges, law clerks and court administrators scrambling to read Kennedy's 70-page opinion and figure out how to proceed. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he would call a special meeting of federal judges to address how to handle the cases.

And here's Scalia's version of judicial "wisdom":

Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Shorter Scalia: FEAR blah blah blah FEAR blah blah blah.

And the article also reminds us of how the Republicans have subverted the constitution every chance they got:

The court has ruled twice previously that people held at Guantanamo without charges can go into civilian courts to ask that the government justify their continued detention. Each time, the administration and Congress, then controlled by Republicans, changed the law to try to close the courthouse doors to the detainees.

They won't get away with that this time around.

The disposition of Omar Khadr's trial will likely be affected by this decision as well and the fact that we've now learned that notes about his detention were destroyed and that the judge handling his case was most likely dismissed because he ruled against US government lawyers should be more than enough for our Conservative government to stop stonewalling on bringing him home. It should be but since they don't even care that he was a child soldier when he was picked up - the first to be charged with war crimes - I'm sure we'll just keep getting the same "let the legal process play out" talking point in response to these developments. Like it was ever a legitimate legal process to begin with.
 

Movie Nite at Gitmo

In an obvious attempt to soften up the prison's vile image, the US military has announced that the detainees will now have a movie nite, among other amenities. (Don't count on Escape From Alcatraz being shown there any time soon.)

A year after three suicides and a riot prompted a security overhaul, the military hopes to provide “increased mental stimulation” with expanded recreation areas, Navy Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“There are certainly benefits to giving them outlets other than sitting in their cell or sitting in their recreation cell for hours at a time with nothing else to exercise their mind or think about other than their situation,” Buzby said.

And it took them how many years to figure this out?

The immediate changes are in Camp 4, a communal section reserved for those detainees considered the most compliant. In recent weeks, the military started allowing detainees to watch soccer matches and preapproved programs such as nature documentaries and episodes of “Deadliest Catch,” a popular Discovery Channel series about crab fishing crews off Alaska.

Until then, detainees did not have access to television except when interrogators offered it as a reward.

Authorities also built a new classroom inside Camp 4 so detainees — some of whom are illiterate — could more easily study Pashto and Arabic, with one leg manacled to the floor. They have also begun looking for an English teacher.

The roughly 45 detainees in Camp 4 sleep in dorm-like rooms and can spend up to 19 hours a day outside. They were also recently allowed a vegetable garden.

Most detainees are in Camps 5 and 6, maximum-security facilities where they are confined alone in solid-wall cells.

In Camp 6, the newest prison, [that was built by Halliburton -catnip] military officials said they are cutting windows into the high concrete wall of the outdoor recreation area and expanding it so more can go outside at one time. They are also expanding the recreation area of Camp 5, the facility generally reserved for detainees who are considered least compliant or of greatest intelligence value.

It's kind of ironic that I wrote this just last week:

Maybe next week we'll be reading that there are actually amusement park rides at Gitmo too - aka "Gitmo Disney"™ - which the Pentagon has been keeping under wraps to avoid having a huge flurry of crazed tourists flocking to the heaven-like facility torturing gulag for their winter vacations.

Well, the roller coaster hasn't quite been announced yet, but stay tuned.

I wonder if they'll be forced to watch 24 or, Dog forbid, Bill O'Reilly.
 

Supreme Court to Hear Gitmo Detainees' Cases

I don't think this is good news considering the obvious right turn the US Supreme Court has taken with Roberts in charge. As Justice Breyer said this week about the school desegregation decision:

"The majority is wrong," Breyer said.

And about the court in general:

"It's not often in law that so few have changed so much so quickly."

I find that to be quite a remarkable statement coming from a supreme court judge.

So, the fact that the court has suddenly decided to take up the case of the Gitmo detainees' rights doesn't bode well for them, as far as I'm concerned:

High Court to Hear Terror Detainee Case

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 29, 2007; 11:42 AM

The Supreme Court said today that it would review the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their confinements in federal court, reversing a decision in April not to take up that issue.

The justices did not say what had changed their minds. The Bush administration had praised the court's earlier decision not to review the matter.

In my mind, that means the court will most likely rule against the detainees.

At the time, only three of four justices necessary to grant review--David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer--were willing to take the two cases involved, saying "these questions deserve this court's immediate attention.'' Two other justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy, issued a statement saying they might want to hear the issue in the future.

Mainly the "liberals". So why do the conservatives now want to hear the case?

Today's order, by tradition, does not indicate which justices decided to hear the cases, but the decision to reopen the matter is unusual.

I'm not as excited as this guy, obviously:

"This is a stunning victory for the detainees," Eric M. Freedman, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School who has been advising some of the captives, told the Associated Press. "It goes well beyond what we asked for, and clearly indicates the unease up there" at the Supreme Court.