Gitmo is a pustule on the body politic which needs to be opened, drained, debreded, cleaned, and healed by exposure to disinfectant, sunlight and fresh air. Close it now, and that pus spreads its infection through the body, to its ultimate detriment

When the Executive attempts to excuse these tactics as essential to its defense against internal subversion, we are obliged to remind it, without apology, of this Court's long commitment to the preservation of the Bill of Rights from the corrosive environment of precisely such expedients. 13 [407 U.S. 297, 332] As Justice Brandeis said, concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 : "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty." Chief Justice Warren put it this way in United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 264 : "[T]his concept of `national defense' cannot be deemed an end in itself, justifying any . . . power designed to promote such a goal. Implicit in the term `national defense' is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of . . . those liberties . . . which [make] the defense of the Nation worthwhile."

the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

District Court is a necessary precedent to support the conclusion of Nixon that the President is subject to the laws of the land and must obey the Courts.

Gitmo is not part of the US CJ system. Sorry about that.

The Gulag is not part of the Soviet CJ system. Sorry about that.

Auschwitz is not part of the German CJ system. Sorry about that.

The Executive is an equal member of the three branches. If you decide that it must "obey the Courts" then you have placed the courts above it.

Whatever actually occurred May 18, and there is good reason to be skeptical about every word that comes out of the mouth of a US military representative, the events underscore the hellish conditions at the internment camp, whose existence is a national disgrace. In the minds of many millions of people around the world, 'Guantánamo' is identified with perpetual incarceration without trial and various forms of mental and physical torture. Its establishment in January 2002 contravened international law and it has remained an outpost of illegality and sadism ever since. And yet there is no outrage in the US mass media or the Democratic Party, all of whom are the Bush administration's accomplices in this criminal enterprise.

The detainees have been found guilty.

Tough being an unrecognized military hiding among civilians.

However, a super max prison with 23 hour a day total isolation might help prevent attempted suicides.

The Executive is an equal member of the three branches. If you decide that it must "obey the Courts" then you have placed the courts above it.

The Constitution provides the only punishment for a President, and that is impeachment.

The Executive is responsible for obeying the law, not the Courts, just like any private citizen.

And yes, PPJ, hopefully Bush will be impeached and convicted some day

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Exactly. So why be disagreeable when I point out that Scribe is completely over the top in his comment that the President must obey the "courts."

Uh, Gitmo is part of the military justice system. The detainees have been found guilty. They are serving their time.

The Tribune's characterization of Guantanamo as a "detention camp" is precisely correct. Despite our persistent efforts to correct the record, many mainstream outlets--print, voice and electronic--persist in referring to this facility as a "prison camp." This is not mere parsing of words or semantic folderol. Prisons are about punishment and rehabilitation; Guantanamo is about neither.

The U.S. military says 759 detainees have been held at Guantanamo Bay since the detention center began taking prisoners in the U.S. war on terror in January 2002. About 275 have been released or transferred.
The U.S. has filed charges against 10 detainees.

The Convention Against Torture prohibits its signatories from using cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners, and obliges them to ensure that any detainee is given certain minimum legal rights. President Ronald Reagan signed the treaty, President George H.W. Bush formally sent it to the Senate for approval, and the Senate ratified it in 1994. Congress also passed legislation turning the treaty's provisions into domestic law, which President Bill Clinton signed. But after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush's legal team told him that he had the power to bypass domestic and international restrictions on the treatment of prisoners, such as the antitorture treaty or the Geneva Conventions. Last year Congress passed a law making clear that no US official can use any form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment against detainees, anywhere in the world. But when Bush signed the new torture ban, he issued a ''signing statement" reasserting his claim that he has the power, as commander-in-chief, to authorize interrogators to bypass the restrictions.

BTW the terrorist manual says: claim torture - no matter what happened.

"Last year, the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps also made similar observations on the al-Qahtani case. He told the Senate Committee on Armed Services that the interrogation techniques used on al-Qahtani violated the U.S. Army Field Manuel on Intelligence Interrogation.
For its part, the U.S. State Department considers such techniques to be torture and has condemned their use in other countries such as Iran and North Korea in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights.

(2006-05-20) -- A day after releasing a report accusing the United States of torture, and demanding closure of its terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the United Nations anti-torture panel called on Al Qaeda to "open a detention facility anywhere, hold prisoners for years without charges, and subject them to controversial interrogation techniques. The panel's report laid out a process designed to move al Qaeda in "baby steps" from its current practice of beheading and blowing up innocent civilians, to taking them prisoner and torturing them, to eventually running a clean, safe, modern prisoner-of-war camp in full compliance with the United Nations protocols

The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.
On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.
U.S. military officials later confirmed that the version of events was wrong.
[...]
Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn't been completed.

mac - No. And to say otherwise is to claim that the courts could, quite easily, void and change whatever laws they don't like and effectively rule the country.

State anti-sodomy laws - Lawrence v. Texas (June 26, 2003) In reversing a Texas court ruling, the Court overruled its previous decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, holding that a Texas statute prohibiting certain sexual acts - namely those between same-sex partners - violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

No one else is authorized in my copy of the constitution.