A Blow Against Tyranny

The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board writes: "This 5-to-4 ruling cuts to the essence of American values and the rule of law: Habeas corpus, the centuries-old legal principle that an individual has a right to go to court to challenge the legality of his or her detention. This is one of the basic standards that separates free and totalitarian nations.

"The Bush administration shredded this and other civil liberties under the guise of protecting Americans after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Time and again - most recently Thursday - the White House presented a false choice between pursuit of terrorism and respect for rights of the accused."

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "Bush can rail against the Supreme Court or he can honor the spirit as well as the letter of this ruling and work with Congress to reform a system that has delayed justice for detainees and dishonored America in the eyes of the world. And he should do what both of the men aspiring to succeed him have promised to do -- close Guantanamo."

The Boston Globe editorial board writes: "For the third time, the Supreme Court yesterday stood up for the rights of terrorism suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo, some for more than six years. Congress and the Bush administration should stop seeking extra-constitutional ways to justify the inmates' indefinite imprisonment and instead bring them to the mainland United States for courts-martial or federal criminal court proceedings."

The USA Today editorial board writes: "In baseball, the rule is three strikes and you're out. On Thursday, the Supreme Court called that third strike against the Bush administration and Congress over the system they devised for holding enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . . .

"Now it's time for the White House and Congress to accept that call and move on, rather than continue trying to craft new ways to get around the umpire -- and the Constitution."

Eugene Robinson writes in his Washington Post opinion column that "it's amazing that any president of the United States would need to have such a basic concept spelled out for him. . . .

"The Supreme Court has now made clear that while justice and honor may be mere inconveniences for Bush, they remain essential components of our national identity.

"'The nation will live to regret what the court has done today,' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a dissent, warning that the ruling 'will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.'

"Everyone hopes he's wrong, of course. But if the only thing that mattered were security, why would we bother to have an independent judiciary? Why would there be any constitutional or legal guarantees of due process for anyone?"

David Kaye writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that "Scalia's overheated rhetoric harms a critical national decision that must be made about what to do next with the detainees. Be afraid! he says. And know whom to blame when the next terrorist attack comes! It's exactly this kind of demagoguery, designed to limit debate, that got us where we are today, with the Congress adopting a detainee law based on fear rather than effective policy and American principles."

In dissent, the Wall Street Journal editorial board writes that five "unelected Justices have declared their war-making supremacy over both Congress and the White House. . . .