The AP writeup, without comment:

Supreme Court delivers mixed verdict on Bush terrorism detention policies

By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON,D.C.— The Supreme Court delivered a mixed verdict Monday on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies, ruling that the U.S. government has the power to hold American citizens and foreign nationals without charges or trial, but that detainees can challenge their treatment in U.S. courts.

The administration had sought a more clear-cut endorsement of its policies than it got. The White House claimed broad authority to seize and hold potential terrorists or their protectors for as long as the president saw fit - and without interference from judges or lawyers.

In both cases, the ruling was 6-3, although the lineup of justices was different in the two decisions.

Ruling in the case of American-born detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the court has "made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

Congress did give the president authority to hold Hamdi, a four-justice plurality of the court said, but that does not cancel out the basic right to a day in court.

The court ruled similarly in the case of about 600 foreign-born men held indefinitely at a U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The men can use American courts to contest their captivity and treatment, the high court said.

Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the ACLU, called the rulings "a strong repudiation of the administration's argument that its actions in the war on terrorism are beyond the rule of law and unreviewable by American courts."

The court sidestepped a third major terrorism case, ruling that a lawsuit filed on behalf of detainee Jose Padilla improperly named Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instead of the much lower-level military officer in charge of the Navy brig in South Carolina where Padilla has been held for more than two years.

Padilla must refile a lawsuit challenging his detention in a lower court.

The court left hard questions unanswered in all three cases.

The administration had fought any suggestion that Hamdi or another U.S.-born terrorism suspect could go to court, saying that such a legal fight posed a threat to the president's power to wage war as he sees fit.

"We have no reason to doubt that courts, faced with these sensitive matters, will pay proper heed both to the matters of national security that might arise in an individual case and to the constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties that remain vibrant even in times of security concerns," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the Hamdi case.

O'Connor said that Hamdi "unquestionably has the right to access to counsel."

The court threw out a lower court ruling that supported the government's position fully, and Hamdi's case now returns to a lower court.

O'Connor was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer in her view that Congress had authorized detentions such as Hamdi's in what she called very limited circumstances,

Congress voted shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks to give the president significant authority to pursue terrorists, but Hamdi's lawyers said that authority did not extend to the indefinite detention of an American citizen without charges or trial.

Two other justices, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, would have gone further and declared Hamdi's detention improper. Still, they joined O'Connor and the others to say that Hamdi, and by extension others who may be in his position, are entitled to their day in court.

Hamdi and Padilla are in military custody at a Navy brig in South Carolina. They have been interrogated repeatedly without lawyers present.

In the Guantanamo case, the court said the Cuban base is not beyond the reach of American courts even though it is outside the country. Lawyers for the detainees there had said to rule otherwise would be to declare the Cuban base a legal no-man's land.

The high court's ruling applies only to Guantanamo detainees, although the United States holds foreign prisoners elsewhere.

The Bush administration contends that as "enemy combatants," the men are not entitled to the usual rights of prisoners of war set out in the Geneva Conventions. Enemy combatants are also outside the constitutional protections for ordinary criminal suspects, the government has claimed.

The administration argued that the president alone has authority to order their detention, and that courts have no business second-guessing that decision.

The case has additional resonance because of recent revelations that U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners and used harsh interrogation methods at a prison outside Baghdad. For some critics of the administration's security measures, the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison illustrated what might go wrong if the military and White House have unchecked authority over prisoners.

At oral arguments in the Padilla case in April, an administration lawyer assured the court that Americans abide by international treaties against torture, and that the president or the military would not allow even mild torture as a means to get information.

Bush the almighty with absolute power... That is DEFINITELY not what this country needs.

Isn't that what America is supposed to be about.. giving everyone their day in court before being locked away. I'm glad the Supreme Court decided that the President did not have the right to further destroy the principles of this country. Too bad they have not done enough to limit his abuses earlier. (i.e. Patriot act)

We have a history of suspending traditional liberties during times of war (Civil War, WWI and II). Unlike those wars, however, the war on terror has no foreseeable end.

That is what worries me. Like people say, once you start taking away rights and liberties the terrorists have won.

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"

This is probably the real reason why the 9/11 attacks occurred. By declaring the war on terror the president also declared the terrorists victory even thou he didn't realized it at the moment. Question is, will he ever realize this?

If you don't have the power to fight your enemy directly, then forcing him to inflict collateral damage is a effective way to create even more enemies for him. And an enemy of an enemy is a friend. I firmly believe that this "war on terror" has accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do, from the terrorists point of view.

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Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't think bin laden and his buddies are actually that subtle or smart. I think the attacks and their actions afterwards made it clear they did not understand what makes this country tick.

I don't believe they attacked us because we "stand for freedom" or whatever, which would have to be true for them to count our suspending civil liberties as a victory.

But I agree that when you start suspending rights of American citizens, the terrorists have won, whether they know it -- or care -- or not.

I don't think destroying our liberties was there intention either. But we inadvertently give them the victory when we do it ourselves.

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"

When did congress declare war and why wasn't I told about it?

Tracker

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"Mister Downchild, please take a fools advice -- never let no one woman misuse you twice"

Sonny Boy Williamson II and the Yardbirds at the Crawdaddy club, London, 1964

Officially, the US has not declared war since WWII.

Wow, what a peacable bunch we are!

It must been Hitler that inspired that idea, he never declared war on anybody. He went straight to business instead.

__________________
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche