I'm still very proud of our system. Today is one of those days. Can't wait to hear the reaction to the decision from the McCain camp. I'm guessing the words "activist judges" will be used repeatedly.

Did you have two posts (one for each possible outcome) pre-written?

Woe for us that Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito continue to allow their personal beliefs to trump over our Constitution and their oaths to defend it.

Still -- an important victory!

OK, honest question

Did you have two posts (one for each possible outcome) pre-written?

Of course not. I had no idea that the Court would even issue a ruling today -- I thought it was still a few weeks away -- and there are way more than 2 possibilities for what the Court's ruling would have been. It would be impossible to write about it in advance.

Awesome column. Maybe all is not lost.

that this decision affords enemies in war rights meant for criminals. Terrorists are not criminals. They are enemy combatants during war. we have never afforded our enemies the rights of criminals during war time. This is what we are doing now. There is a totally different standard of rights given to someone planning to carry out an act of war from someone that has committed a crime, and in my opinion, the SC sees no difference. here is how I wrote about it...

http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/06/detainees-to-get-habeus-rights.html

I am overjoyed that this ruling came down... it is the Supreme Court finally bringing to a close the constitutional crisis that has been our norm for nearly the past 7 years.

However, I am distressed that the vote was 5-4 with all of the "conservatives" on the Court in dissent -- Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. What happened to Scalia's "originalism"? The majority used originalist arguments in its opinion -- looking to the Federalist Papers and even ancient English law -- while Scalia resorted to fear-mongering, explicitly saying Americans will die because the Court decided the way it did.

Generally, a disgraceful performance by the conservative 4; I hope history gives them the worst marks possible.

I heard on the radio this morning that Parliament passed by a very narrow margin a law which allows the government to hold suspects for up to 42 days without providing a reason. Many of the opposing PMs decried the vote as overturning the Magna Carta.

Interesting juxtaposition of events.

Great article, Glenn, but I'm a little concerned about the "greatest victim" line - I think more than a few people might think that the loss of innocent life in the attacks might be at least close to the trampling of the constitution...

I shouldn't have used "honest".

It's obvious to anyone reading the post that it wasn't "pre-written". It's pretty intimidating though, the alacrity with which you and Marty Lederman (maybe others, but I'm not aware of them)can peruse, digest, and comment upon the Opinion.

Hats off.

Somebody (Kos?) referenced Scalia's dissent, (Hey, we're at WAR w/ the scary brown men) which is scary. Scarier still that it was 5-4.

I think the 500,000+ dead Iraqis provide compelling evidence that Glenn is correct in his assessment.

that none of the so-called "conservative" judges who are supposed to be strictly following the constitution, voted with the majority.

This is the last election where we will have a more or less free choice (at least in those states with a valid paper-trail) to elect a President, unless Obama is elected. I can only hope that Obama doesn't shy away from this issue: protecting the Constitution of the United States of America from further erosion. If McCain is elected, we can kiss goodbye to the most sacred instrument that has governed us wisely since its inception: the Constitution. Kudos to GG for his quick post on this important decision.

One step forward.

Now I am waiting for the NEXT fourteen steps BACK to be thrust upon us by the never tiring forces of evil occupying the PEOPLE'S White House.

It is nice and cuta and all to go ahead and roll with the pretense that our Supreme Court still matters, but does ANYONE EVER bring up in the media all the reported secret signings of documents Evil Bush engages in periodically? You know, the one's giving him dicktater power over everything he sees ONCE the NEXT 9/11 type event happens (at the CIA's choice of time and date). Or the ones turning the whole of North America into one new united nation.

Or what about the reported purchase By Evil Bush of over 100,000 acres in, I think it is, Bolivia in case the scoundrel is brought in front of the World Court. Blogette or whatever the fuck her name is reported on it last year.

Or is all this just off the radar? Beyond the pale. Out of sight, out of mind.

sigh...

We-- sentient, good, REAL people-- are all stuck, TRAPPED with Americans who are being played and who seem to continue to enjoy the pleasure of the ongoing kool aid enema.

What was the argument for eliminating habeus corpus? This I gotta hear.

By the way Glenn, you are a fantastic writer and a great patriot. Keep up the good works.

I'm greatly relieved that the Court decided as it did, but that the decision was 5-4 is a sober reminder of why it is so critically important to elect a Democratic president in November. We cannot afford any more Justices in the stamp of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts, who have shown they are willing to jettison the most basic liberties in order to please their political masters.

The entire quote by the Court of The Federalist No. 84 says it all

The Federalist No. 84:

“[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone . . . are well worthy of recital: ‘To bereave a man of life . . . or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.’ And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas corpus act, which in one place he calls ‘the BULWARK of theBritish Constitution.’ ” C. Rossiter ed., p. 512 (1961) (quoting 1 Blackstone *136, 4 id., at *438).