.
.
.
.
Thursday's (June 12, 2008) 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, a decision that awarded the "unlawful combatants" at Gitmo (a/k/a terrorists) the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" has left millions of Americans, especially those in the law enforcement, military and First Responder communities stunned.
The decision led Chief Justice Roberts to declare that the court’s majority had struck down “the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants,” and in doing so had left itself open to accusations of “judicial activism.”
The High Court’s preeminent Constitutional scholar, Antonin Scalia, went even further in writing in the dissent; “America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60–61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed.”
The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
You can’t get any more clear and plain-spoken than that.
Joining Justice Anthony P. Kennedy’s opinion on Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, were Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter. Opposed were Justices Clarence Thomas, John G. Roberts, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia.
