Maybe I'm just being hopeful, but I'm taking yesterday's court rulings as a sign that we're starting to move back towards sanity in this country:
The broad presidential powers invoked by the Bush administration after Sept. 11, 2001, to detain suspected terrorists outside the civilian court system is now being challenged by the federal courts, the very branch of the government the White House hoped to circumvent.The two separate appellate court rulings on Thursday swept away crucial parts of the administration's legal strategy to handle terrorist suspects outside the criminal justice system and incarcerate them indefinitely without access to lawyers or to the evidence against them.
The rulings are by no means a final judicial verdict on the administration's approach. But the rulings demonstrated powerfully the willingness of the courts to challenge the administration's procedures, which were put in place without Congressional approval in the tumultuous months that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.
So...I'm hopeful. It's unfortunate that the judicial system moves so much more slowly than the executive branch, but there's not much we can do about that. At least we're starting to see signs of push back from folks with some sense who aren't reacting to events out of plain fear, which is what I think the Bush administration has been doing for a long time.
Posted by Jason at December 19, 2003 09:51 AM