The stupidity pandemic is still raging out of control, and now we see that the United States Supreme Court has been infected with the mysterious pathogen.



Yesterday the USSC handed down a 150 page decision regarding the issue of Habeas Corpus application to foreign combatants being held at the US Guantanamo base in Cuba ("Gitmo").  Right off the bat, TheStupidNation.com knows there's trouble.  We've been a follower of the goings-on at the USSC since our High-School days, and experience has taught us the longer the decision document, the more creative, and full of legal art the finding will be.  This decision does not appear to disappoint.

We have not read this novella sized treatment in it's entirety yet, however, there are few things that jump out at us.  Although we are not lawyers here, we can kinda sorta wade through the Latin and other mumbo-jumbo to get to the point.   The point here is, that the USSC has expanded the boundaries of Federal Court jurisdiction to the entire globe - and arguably the Universe.  It's a historic power grab.

The Supreme Court has muscled in on the turf formerly owned by the other two branches of government.  We are not surprised.  We guess they felt somehow left out, and were sore to get in on the anti-terror party.  Now they are, and they've made a giant mess of it.  Whoopee!  For the previous 218 years, the Federal Court jurisdiction was limited to the physical borders of the United States.  No more, the Court has declared it has jurisdiction anywhere there is a US Government presence, and whatever the activity maybe occurring overseas that involved matters that pertain to US Federal law, even if it involves non-citizens, the Court now has a say.  Just because they said so.  Glorious.

When it comes to dealing with captured enemy soldiers of a foreign state, the rules are very clear and mostly unambiguous about how these soldiers should be treated.  The USA subscribes to the Geneva Conventions, and thus treatment of captured enemy soldiers is well defined.  However, when enemy combatants are captured, and they don't belong to a state armed force, what the hec are you supposed to do with them?  Let them loose to fight and kill another day?  Or lock them up?  The answer is, of course, lock them up. 

And here is where the Supreme Court steps in.  Say they - you can't lock them up and leave them to the tribunal process.  Now enemy combatants enjoy the full protections of the United States Constitution, even though they are not held on United States soil, and they are not citizens of the country.  A spectacular reach for the Court, and an advancement of the rights of these detainees beyond those of legitimate prisoners of war in the Geneva Conventions sense.  Incredible.  One talking head on the McNeal/Lehrer New Hour last night likened the awfulness of this decision to the infamous Dred Scott v Sandford ruling.  As far a modern times go, it is as bad, arguably worse, than the awful decision rendered in Kelo v. City of New London - when the Supreme Court declared that Government could strip a property owner of his land for any reason.

Of particular trouble here is that Habeas Corpus states the Government has a certain amount time to make it's detention case, or the enemy combatant literally gets a Get Out Of Jail Free card.  As Justice Scalia correctly observed, these enemies of the United States will then be free to return to the battlefield, and kill more Americans.  No worries there, the Court majority says, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."  The laws and Constitution may survive after a fashion (see the Patriot Act and the Campaign Finance "Reform" Act), but not the soldiers/citizens these enemy combatants will kill once released.  We guess that's the high price of constitutional survival.  We know that freedom is not free, but we never envisioned this.

If we were in the White House, we would ignore the USSC ruling, as President Abraham Lincoln did in Ex Parte Merryman, which ironically enough, had to do with the suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War.  Alas, President Bush doesn't want to slug it out head to head with the USSC in the waning days of his office, he has said he would abide by the decision.  

Drat.  We wish he wouldn't.

There is another way to get around this though, and at the same time throw the bird to the USSC.  There was another case relatively recently turned down for review by the USSC involving a German man named Khaled el-Masri.   The aggrieved Mr. el-Masri sued because he said he was mistakenly kidnapped by the US Government while in Macedonia, then transported and tortured by US agents in Afghanistan.   The Federal Government sought to quash the suit by invoking States Secrets Privilege.  They were successful - the USSC considered el-Masri's legitimate sounding grievance to be radioactive, refusing to give him his day in court, upholding the State Secrets Privilege doctrine even though, if true, el-Masri was denied the same rights that the USSC is slapping itself on the back for extending to Gitmo detainees.   So, for each Gitmo detainee, the Federal Government should claim State Secrets Privilege to get Habeas Corpus quashed.  That would be a jab in the eye of the USSC.  Of course, we know that the State Secrets Privilege was never envisioned to encompass a scenario like this, but hec, if the USSC can take a giant leap, then so can we.  God help us all.

The Stupid Nation.