I think everyone knows I don't like blogging about politics much and I'm already flirting with politics in the comments thread discussion about rocket fuel contamination, but I blogged back when we suspended habeas corpus so a brief note welcoming that the Supreme Court just struck down the suspension as unconstitutional seems in order to me. (It's a Hyperlink-a-pa-looza!) Even an "enemy combatant" has the right to see the evidence against them and to have a lawyer present. Somehow I still think the republic will survive.
I also can't resist snarking that Justice Scalia dissented because we're "at war with radical Islamists" which first off in a strictly legal sense isn't true, so it doesn't belong in a Supreme Court statement. Second off, maybe we'd do better if we decided to be at war with people seeking to destroy the American way of life? Me, I say the right to a fair trial and the right to confront the evidence used to accuse someone of a crime is pretty key to that American way of life. People who say we have to give up that right because Daddy Government knows best and it's too dangerous for us to know what's really going on? Those are the ones that I think are dangerous to America.
I also can't resist snarking that Justice Scalia dissented because we're "at war with radical Islamists" which first off in a strictly legal sense isn't true, so it doesn't belong in a Supreme Court statement. Second off, maybe we'd do better if we decided to be at war with people seeking to destroy the American way of life? Me, I say the right to a fair trial and the right to confront the evidence used to accuse someone of a crime is pretty key to that American way of life. People who say we have to give up that right because Daddy Government knows best and it's too dangerous for us to know what's really going on? Those are the ones that I think are dangerous to America.