Does the Gitmo Decision Make Sense?

[cool user name]

Does the Gitmo Decision Make Sense?
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 By REYNOLDS HOLDING

A detainee leads a group in Islamic prayer in an outdoor common area at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba.
Brennan Linsley / APArticle ToolsPrintEmailReprints A federal appeals court in Washington has teed up yet another Guantanamo Bay decision for the U.S. Supreme Court, and if the justices review the case, they probably won't like what they see.

In upholding a law that stops foreign combatants from seeking their freedom through the courts, the appeals court highlighted what has always seemed off about the Bush Administration's approach to incarcerating suspected enemy combatants. Most of those held at Guantanamo Bay were captured in Afghanistan, then hauled halfway around the world to our vicinity. Instead of being placed within the continental United States, however, they were put just offshore at the U.S. military base in Cuba. Sort of America, but foreign enough for the Administration to insist that they are beyond the reach of U.S. courts.

The legal implications are almost nonsensical. To see why, consider Tuesday's decision. After meandering through a bunch of dusty British precedents, the court decided that the Constitution only protects habeas corpus — the right to ask a judge for release from illegal imprisonment — for foreigners when they are held in sovereign territory: areas over which the U.S. has absolute control. That means a foreigner captured by U.S. officials abroad and held by them in, say, Florida, can sue for his release. One held in Mexico — or, apparently, Guantanamo Bay — cannot.

Why should rights as fundamentally important as habeas corpus depend solely on a difference of a few hundred miles? In the days of dusty precedents, when issues of time and distance were important, there were practical obstacles to getting foreigners before a faraway judge, as the appeals court notes. But we're talking about a 21st century military operation, camped out just off the coast specifically to keep prisoners away from U.S. courts. As a basis for denying constitutional rights, this seems a bit arbitrary, if not sneaky, and I suspect that the Supreme Court knows it.

More here:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1592560,00.html

[Totallybushed]

1. For how long

have you been expecting legal decisions to make sense? Especially with the country in the shape it is in.

[cool user name]

2. I haven't. That's just the title of the article.