The Supreme Court ruled today that suspected foreign terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts and to confront their accusers.
The Court also slammed Congress for passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which set up the show trial military tribunals now in progress.
The Court held that even in times of war, and even with suspected terrorists, the Constitution controls.
Scalia and the other pro-torture judges whined in dissent that the ruling would make "the war on terror" tougher for the U.S., totally ignoring the ideas of the Founding Fathers that the Constitution should apply in wartime as well as peacetime and ignoring the fact that the world's leading experts on torture say that torture produces inaccurate and useless information.
Given that the Constitution has been getting mugged for many years now, this is an important decision which might shift the momentum away from fascism and towards justice and the rule of law.
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