the Supreme Court Defies It's Puppet Master

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Court says detainees have rights, bucking Bush

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago

In a stinging rebuke to President Bush's anti-terror policies, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign detainees held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges.

Bush said he strongly disagreed with the decision — the third time the court has repudiated him on the detainees — and suggested he might seek yet another law to keep terror suspects locked up at the prison camp, even as his presidency winds down.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the ruling would not affect the Guantanamo trials against enemy combatants.

"I'm disappointed with the decision, in so far as I understand that it will result in hundreds of actions challenging the detention of enemy combatants to be moved to federal district court," Mukasey said at a Group of Eight meeting of justice and home affairs ministers Friday in Tokyo.

"I think it bears emphasis that the court's decision does not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed. Instead it addresses the procedures that the Congress and the president put in place to permit enemy combatants to challenge their detention."

"Obviously we're going to comply with the decision, we're going to study both the decision itself and whether any legislation or any other action may be appropriate."

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 high court majority, acknowledged the terrorism threat the U.S. faces — the administration's justification for the detentions — but he declared, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

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Damn! Pinocchio is deifying Geppetto and Geppetto doesn't like it.