SCOTUS blog is reporting on the US response to the Supreme Court ruling that it cannot indefinitely detain individuals without charges. Apparently the legal strategy of the US is to argue that they didn't really lose, and that the only thing they have to do is tell the court that they think someone is an enemy combatant and then they have the right to hold them indefinitely.

This issue came to my attention a while ago (from the same blog) when I discovered that the "tribunals" that were set up not only prohibited the accused from having a lawyer, but actually (I kid you not) required that people who might be involved swear that they were not a lawyer. Yes, the Bush administration has determined that lawyers are so evil that they cannot be present under any circumstances, even when other third parties can.

This pisses me off. Lawyers are not evil and their very presence does not make anything worse off. There are bad lawyers and good ones. Remember it is not only private lawyers that are prohibited, but government lawyers, military lawyers. I fear that this rule only contemplates the horrible truth that lawyers advocate for unpopular clients and--more importantly--force the powerful to follow the rules they create. If these trials are anywhere in the vicinity of fair, they would have nothing to fear from lawyers being present.

While I am the first to admit that lawyers can be a burden to a society, it is no different than the burden imposed by the very rules the lawyers enforce. The government’s position in these cases is scary because it shows the willingness of the government to dispense will all rules and procedures in order to accomplish their secret goals. We are not talking about giving up some civil rights for security; we are talking about completely refusing to protect even the most fundamental rights of individuals. The government is asking to court to validate its claim that it can do anything it wants. That includes holding them, torturing them, raping them, sadistically mutilating their bodies. “No rights” means anything goes.

All I can say to that is that some truths are self-evident, “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Supreme Court recognized this in Hamdi and Rasul, and I am embarrassed that my government still refuses to accept it.