SCOTUS: Bush overstepped authority at Gitmo

Earl Warren had as much to do with making the 1960s an era of turmoil as he did making it an age of linear progress. That makes him an instrument of his times, not his corrupt administration like Scalia and Thomas.

 

The Supreme Court has intermittently been a political football since Marbury. SCOTUS would make an unpopular decision, people would be up in arms and politicians would rush to use it to their advantage. Obviously, that happened quite a bit during the Warren Court. But Roe made it a permanent political football. I whole-heartedly agree with Justice Ginsburg's sentiments that the Court would have been a lot better off by not hearing Roe. Had Roe never been handed down, the march toward legalized abortion would have continued and states would have increasingly allowed it and opponents of abortion would have been fighting losing battles all over the nation. But Roe galvanized the pro-lifers and gave them a simple way to reach their goal: get five Supreme Court justices opposed to Roe. How do you do that? By thinking ahead far enough to develop a farm team of anti-Roe's in the U.S. Court of Appeals. And the pro-choicers responded by trying to always make sure they had at least five pro-Roe justices on the court and developing their own farm team. And when both sides are seemingly fixated on one issue, you fail to fully examine the other issues.

 

Ragu --
There's sound constitutional reasoning behind all the ones I mentioned, including Griswold. (And, contrary to your post, there hasn't been a serious challenge to Griswold yet, despite the fact that there "isn't a constitutional scholar alive" who agrees with it - which is, ah, a non-fact.) There was solid 4th,5th and 6th amendment law behind both Gideon and Miranda. There was an equal-protection argument behind Brown that had lain there for anyone to pick up since the close of Reconstruction. This wasn't a bunch of lefties playing handball. I'll give you Douglas, maybe, and Brennan, but, hell, Warren was the governor of California who interned the Japanese, and most of the court were Eisenhower appointees.

 

Weighing in on this late, but my question to you would be why shouldn't they qualify for Geneva protections? If we're at war, through the Al-Qaeda-WMD-Iraq connection, then they would be enemy combatants and qualify for that protection. If, instead, they're considered criminals, then they're supposed to be afforded due process.

So what are we considering them?

 

Neither the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force] nor the DTA [Detainee Treatment Act] can be read to provide specific, overriding authorization for the commission convened to try Hamdan. Assuming the AUMF activated the President’s war powers, see Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507, and that those powers include authority to convene military commissions in appropriate circumstances, see, e.g., id., at 518, there is nothing in the AUMF’s text or legislative history even hinting that Congress intended to expand or alter the authorization set forth in UCMJ Art. 21.

(from the Syllabus)
That last sentence makes me think things are going to get very interesting if the NSA wiretap case ever gets this far.

 

Because they're not a signatory. For the same reason I'm not protected by your health insurance. You benefit from the treaties and agreements to which you are a party.

Alternatively, because there are rules within Geneva to qualify for the protections (uniform etc.) which they don't comply with either.

 

I'm tired of Clarence Thomas writing opinions and not asking questions.

He needs to go to the locker room and face the music. He's a fag.  

 

I thought they were considered enemy combatants, which is why we're (supposed to be) following the Geneva accords.

 

The argument is that the al-Q detainees aren't protected by Geneva because they aren't prisoners of war. Under Geneva, you must (a) be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (fight under a flag/wear a uniform); (c) carry arms openly; and (d) conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Here is a good primer on the controversy:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/genevaconventions.html

 

Fine, if that's the stance you're going to take. I ask again, what IS their status?