May 7, 2004
WE ARE THE WORLD?:
In Guantanamo cases, a question of tyranny (Samuel C. Rickless, May 2, 2004, Newsday)
If Eisentrager is ambiguous, as it seems to be, then the court will need to decide the case on principle. And here there can be no doubt of the proper outcome. Were the Supreme Court to hold that federal courts do not possess jurisdiction to consider the challenges raised on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees, it would allow executive officials to create legal black holes on foreign soil in which arbitrarily detained aliens could lawfully be held incommunicado, tortured, maimed and even executed.This is constitutionally impermissible, involving as it does the consolidation in a single governmental branch the power to make, interpret and enforce laws governing alien detainees.
Mr. Rickless claims to be a law professor--an assertion that can not be reconciled with this essay. The notion that there is a principled way of construing a constitution that applies its provisions to aliens in other countries is patently ridiculous. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 7, 2004 10:45 AM
There is a method. When dealing with foreigners abroad the constitution tells us that the President has the aspect of a king subject to 2 limitations. First hist treaties must be ratified by the senate before they take effect and second his ambassadors must be approved by the senate.
It is so simple that only LLL law profs and the gagle of confused senile old crnks called the supreme court could screw it up.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 7, 2004 9:51 PMRickless merely illustrates the unlimited grasp for power that our black-robed masters and their acolytes are exercising.
Posted by: John Cunningham at May 8, 2004 8:12 AMIn the first place, I never claimed to be a law professor. For those of you who know how to read (very few, I guess), I claimed to be a UCSD professor of philosophy who also happens to be affiliated with the Institute for Law and Philosophy at the University of San Diego School of Law. If you can't bother to work this out by reading the byline of my article, then why should we trust your reading of the constitution? Come to think of it, if it's absurd to think of the constitution as applying to aliens, then why do some of the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply to "persons", rather than to "citizens"? By your logic, I suppose that aliens aren't persons. This reminds me of someone...Let me see. Oh yes: Hitler.
Posted by: Samuel Rickless at May 20, 2004 11:27 PM