Supreme Court (5-4) enforces detainee rights

I must admit I'm somewhat surprised, the Supreme Court restored Habeas Corpus:

High court: Gitmo detainees have rights in court

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

In another rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but that such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances.

Five-to-four, I don't even need to read "liberal justices" to know who dissented. It'd be the four Constitution hating "conservatives" (Alito, Roberts, Scalia & Thomas) who, despite touting strict construction and respect for the Constitution and eschew the "living document" standard from which things like "Right of Privacy" have been determined, couldn't see fit to recognize the actual provisions of Habeas Corpus written into the Constitution. I should point out, by the way, two of them wouldn't be there if the Democrats had shown a spine.

But that's typical of conservative appointee appellate judges and Supreme Court justices. The Constitution is a fine old thing, as long as it serves their interests when strictly interpreted. When a strict interpretation would benefit criminal defendants, unliked people with little (or no) constituency (such as the men in GITMO), or plaintiffs against the government and/or large corporations, the "strict interpretation" doctrine they love goes the way of the dodo.

While I am, by the way, happy that these Constitutional Rights were restored. I'm still mortified that it was by a narrow margin and that entire swaths of my countrymen don't see fit to understand these rights are for everyone or no one. The slippy slope is a cliff, not a gentle-rise, and once government gets a tool to oppress, it has been shown, even in our country, time-and-time again that the tool will be used against its own populace.