Supremes get in touch with their inner American

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday. The Supreme Court, in the words of this Salon analysis, checked and balanced the president.

The detainess at Guantanomo Bay will see their day in court. Here are the cases and their rulings: Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld v. Padilla

Writing for the plurality in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US citizen of Saudi descent who has been held since he was captured in late 2001 in Afghanistan allegedly fighting with the Taliban militia, Justice Sandra Day O'conner voiced the following:

''It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad,"

She concludes:

"...a state of war is not a blank check when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

It would be better if Gitmo were dismantled. It's a prison camp. The logic behind its creation has been thoroughly repudiated. If we capture a terrorist or suspected terrorist in the US, let's build the case, try him/her in an open court of law, and abide by the verdict. If we capture a soldier in one of our foreign excursions, then we should hold them until the war is over then let them go. Terrorists captured in other countries need to be prosecuted in those countries. Our legal system, the writ of habeus corpus and the inherent fairness that stems from it, is something that defines us as a civil society. I agree with London's Finacial Times when it says that the ruling "strikes a blow for justice."

It doesn't only strike a blow for justice. This ruling redeems us all. I personally do not feel like handing my civil liberties to George Bush so that he can prosecute people he believes are terrorists. I do not trust a man who would argue to hold that power on behalf of the American people. For those of you who think that Spain capitulated to Al Qaeda by voting out the incumbents and bringing their troops home from Iraq, I assure you, that would be a microscopic enemy victory compared to having the United States gut its own legal system and the principles of liberty and fairness on which it is founded in response to a terrorist attack.