Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

The Supreme Court: What Constitution are they Upholding?

The Supreme Court of the US made few light decisions recently. I say light because it was clear to me that not much thinking went on in the justices heads. Not that there should have been much thinking because the cases were quite clear, but methinks that the Justices plain forgot that it is there job to make sure that the government abides by the constitution. Over at counterpunch There is an article entitled: Hamdi, Padilla and Rasul v. Rumsfeld and Bush Who Really Won? By ELAINE CASSEL which explains how the Supreme Court completely messed up.

Quote 1:
Padilla, recently vilified by a highly-placed Department of Justice attorney, is the American citizen arrested on a material witness warrant in Chicago two years ago. The government's story then was that he was planning to detonate a dirty bomb. Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference and announced the incarceration of Padilla and told us what a dangerous man he was. Of course, if they had evidence that he was planning to detonate a dirty bomb, they would have charged him with a host of crimes, and tried him. But they never charged him with anything. What does that tell you? A couple of weeks ago, Ashcroft sent out one of his top deputies to change the story on Padilla. That story may have influenced the Court's decision, though we will never know this. Though the official denied that the press conference-at which he announced that Padilla had "confessed" to plotting to blow up high-rise apartment buildings-may have been held when it was to punctuate the government's belief that Padilla was a very, very dangerous man. So if he is so dangerous, why is he not being charged.

This is very important to understand. Padilla, and thereby anyone, can be arrested and detained, without being charged for being "suspected" of anything. Lest one think I am being alarmist, remember that Blacks travelling along InterState 95 are stopped more times than whites travelling the same route and have thier property searched for drugs even though Blacks use and yes, sell, drugs less than whites do AND blacks make up far less a proportion of those travelling that corridor. Hence the government is already apt to "illegally" stop people on unspecified "suspicion." In any case, the law (used to) require(s) that you be given a timely trial and due process regardless of what crime you have supposedly been charged with. The Bush administration has thrown this out by detaining people and not charging them with anything. How is this possible?

Quote 2:
The majority opinion was written by Justice O'Connor, and we all know what that means-a tortured crafting of facts cobbled to law that tries to give everybody something. A little here, a little there. He is what we got: The Congress gave the President the authority to detain anyone involved with fighting with al Qaeda or the Taliban when it voted for war in Afghanistan.

Ahaaaaa. See This is why every and anyone must be declared a part of the All inclusive Al-Q. Let's remember the nice quote given by representative Conyers to Michael Moore: "Son sit down, we don't read most bills.." There we have it. The persons voted into office (not by me) to protect "our" interests handed Bush the ability to suspend Habeus Corpus when they handed him the wide powers to "deal with" Al-Q. So by giving Bush the ability to detain without charging anyone with a crime, Congress, in one fell swoop gave up the power to declare war AND suspended Habeus Corpus. Now the Supreme Court steps in a validates what happend. Clearly the Supreme Court should have exercized it's power to negate such a decision by Congress but it did not. in doing so they failed to uphold the basic principles of the constitution. They did not do their jobs ( second time for everything).

Lastly, the Supreme Court turned the supposition of innocence on it's head:

Quote 3:
he can file a petition for writ of habeas corpus, challenging his detention. Ah, but the government gets the benefit of the doubt in such a hearing. It puts forth is conclusory affidavit, like the one cranky Judge Doumar in Richmond did not like one bit, and Hamdi gets to try-just try, if he can-to prove them wrong. Yes, the burden will be on Hamdi to prove the government's allegations against him to be wrong. Now that will be kind of difficult, won't it, since Hamdi has been incarcerated for going on three years, has no contact with anyone in the outside world, and will have a hell of a time coming up with the witnesses to refute the conclusion of the government that he was indeed fighting with the Taliban or al Qaeda against the U.S. Let's see, even if he knew people to subpoena to support an alibi-if he has one-federal marshals don't serve subpoenas in Afghanistan.

Here lies the third leg of the conspiracy. once detained, but not charged, the (what do we call them) can petition a court. But all the government has to do is say the magoc phrase: Al-Q and "terrorism suspect" and that's it. The court assumes the government to be right simply because...well..it's the government. Never mind that the founder explictly wrote the constitution to prevent the very actions mentioned above. this is the problem with Pre-emptive detention. No one has committed any crime. They are being held for what they think, say or believe. None of these are crimes. If Padilla was in fact going to blow up apartment buildings then the FBI or whatever org. should have tailed him until he was almost ready to commit the crime in question and then move in arrest and charge him for what he did.

But that makes too much sense.

Links:
http://www.counterpunch.org/