Excellent argument, & interesting information about Boumediene v. Bush

We all want to get the bad guys, but not at the price of an imperial presidency, & a Senate whose members base their opinions "not on independent fact-finding, but on a 2007 CNN report".

The majority opinion takes a longer view, and one that recognizes that our country has repeatedly come under threat while retaining its commitment to maintaining freedom. In the words of Justice Kennedy, "Officials charged with daily operational responsibility for our security may consider a judicial discourse on the history of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 and like matters to be far removed from the Nation’s present, urgent concerns. Established legal doctrine, however, must be consulted for its teaching. Remote in time it may be; irrelevant to the present it is not. Security depends upon a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and the ability of our Armed Forces to act and to interdict. There are further considerations, however. Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers. It is from these principles that the judicial authority to consider petitions for habeas corpus relief derives. Our opinion does not undermine the Executive’s powers as Commander in Chief. On the contrary, the exercise ofthose powers is vindicated, not eroded, when confirmed by the Judicial Branch. Within the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person.

Read it all @ Counterterrorism Blog.