U.S. Supreme Court: Guantanamo detainees have Constitutional rights

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080612/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guantanamo

The U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, rules that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. So the High Court has went against Congress and decided that the Federal Court can hear challenges from these foreign terror suspects. Maybe I missed something in middle school social studies class, but I didn't know that foreign enemy combatants had rights under the U.S. Constitution.

 

My opinion has won a vote of 4 to 2 - Mr. Devil on the shoulder you only get one vote! One! Don't think I don't see you cheating - and I have concluded that this is very good.

 

Well you learn something new every day.

 

1. Many people dispute the process that classifies suspects as enemy combatants.
2. The constitution does not limit the US government from extending certain rights to noncitizens. In regards to this situation, my opinion is that prisoner rights should be maintained for all prisoners regardless of citizenship.

 

It really is good. It's disgusting how they have no rights down there.

 

Well this is how the system is supposed to work. I think there are genuine logistical problems with sorting this all out in our courts, but then again we have more lawyers in this country than you can shake a stick at so...

And ObiWan506: There's a BIG difference between having NO rights and not having the same Constitutional rights as an American Citizen.

 

And we still have to wait for them to come to their senses and find waterboarding unconstitutional. It is "cruel" and "unusual"

 

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Anthony Kennedy has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.

 

Right! You kids today and yer "rights"!

Let me tell you something about "rights"! In my day we were water-boarded every day, (twice on Sundays), and we liked it! And if the military decided to deny us habeas corpus, we were thankful that they didn't summarily execute us!

You kids today are soft with yer "cruel and unusual" and yer "human decency"! Why, next you'll be demanding affordable healthcare for poor people!

 

lol

Silly ol' Jackson and his ignoring the court.

 

Right to a lawyer, right against self-incrimination, right to a speedy trial, due process, equal protection... hell, freedom of religious expression. I don't really understand what's so bad about applying the same rights to Guantanamo detainees that would be applied to any other U.S. or non-U.S. citizen (non-POW) detained by the United States government.

It's almost as though those rights are supposed to be universal. Crazy.

 

There's no need to be an ass about it, Eddie.

You have no idea how the prisoners in Gitmo are treated. I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that more American soldiers have been waterboarded in this country than any prisoners at Gitmo.

You can always go for the emotional holier-than-thou crap that you like to pull if you like, but what I said is simply that it's disingenuous to suggest that the prisoners have no rights, because that's simply not the case. There were very specific rights that were denied to them. You can make an argument for that being unfair--that's what our Courts are for and, as I said in my post, that's the way our system works--but to suggest that they have no rights is to completely mischaracterize the situation.

 

That's right. You can split hairs all you like, and I can respond with joke posts mocking your absurdity. It's the beauty of free exchange of ideas.

 

Sadly, this decision comes a bit too late to help Harold & Kumar.

 

This ruling is a travesty.

 

Would you feel better if this ruling was a travesti?

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Care to elaborate?

 

Except that you didn't exchange ideas, Eddie. Frankly, neither did I. I only pointed out an inaccurate statement and you chose to mischaracterize what I said. That may make you feel superior, but it's hardly an exchange of ideas. There are times you make it near impossible to respect your opinions when you show nothing but disdain for the opinions (or rather your perception of the opinions) of others.

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[b]Guy[/b], I've long felt that it's a mistake to take away any rights that we normally observe for our citizens from the prisoners. There are legitimate reasons for some of the processes that we have in place, but I've never been a fan of it because it ends up lending credence to a lot of (oftentimes) unfair claims about how we treat our prisoners. I think you'll find that many of the rights you enumerated are curtailed (as opposed to completely removed) but even that has been too much. I wish there were a place we could put these prisoners so we could close down that detention facility once and for all. From what I understand, no country wants them. Perhaps now that they can be given hearing in our civilian courts, there'll be no reason to keep them out of federal prisons.

 

Was watching this documentary the other day. Apparently Afghan warlords turn "terror suspects" over to the US military to keep them happy, even though most of the time they're just innocent guys picked off the street. And of course these guys end up in Gitmo. So it's nice they get to challenge their detention.

 

Snookumswan: That post is funny since you accused me of being "holier than thou", but whatever. The fact is, your original absurd comment was nothing but splitting hairs, and you continue to split hairs to defend it.

"Except that you didn't exchange ideas, Eddie. Frankly, neither did I." What are you even talking about?! Do you realize how silly you sound?

 

Somehow I suspect Old Hickory, who was the President of the United States of America, wouldn't care to much about a college student's attempt to spit on him.

 

i think you just kinda proved his point there, ed.

 

I think Souderwan just referred to himself in the third person, Ed.