NewsFlash! Human Beings Ruled to Have Human Rights!

( – promoted by ek hornbeck)

NYT

The Detainees at Gitmo have been “granted” Habeas Corpus.

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.

snip

The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate.

The administration had argued first that the detainees have no rights. But it also contended that the classification and review process was a sufficient substitute for the civilian court hearings that the detainees seek.

We’ll have to wait for real analysis to see all the ins and outs…but this seems like a huge blow to George Bush’s War OF Terror. Humans have just been ruled human, no matter what label ‘the Authorities’ try to pin on them to dehumanize them. Whatever else may happen today, this is already a good day.

Update: The money quote From Justice Kennedy, h/t to Adam B

Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply…. Abstaining from questions involving formal sovereignty and territorial governance is one thing. To hold the political branches have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will is quite another. The former position reflects this Court’s recognition that certain matters requiring political judgments are best left to the political branches. The latter would permit a striking anomaly in our tripartite system of government, leading to a regime in which Congress and the President, not this Court, say “what the law is.”