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.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. 

 

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

 

Justice Kennedy's opinion echoes the Court that ruled and rebuked President Abraham Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War.  Even during that time - when the country had a real problem - the Court said:

 

        "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people equally in war

        and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all

        times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious

        consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions

        can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."

 

                                        -The U. S. Supreme Court - Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866). 

 

People need to know about this historic view and its essential importance to democratic culture.  Citizen’s also need to understand that the right-wing dissenting jurists on today's Supreme Court decision (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas) are as misplaced and dangerous to this country as the radical Islamists they claim to fear.