Samp: An inexplicable power grab

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080613/cm_usatoday/opposingviewaninexplicablepowergrab;_ylt=AnO0W940TeL7A2Th3gEhVOqs0NUE

Throughout our nation's history, the courts have usually deferred to our elected branches of government — Congress and the president — on foreign affairs and national security issues. And with good reason. The courts simply lack the expertise and resources to justify second-guessing military experts on such issues.

In Thursday's sharply divided 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court decided to abandon that long history of deference. It decreed that henceforth, it will be the job of federal courts to decide on their own whether aliens captured on foreign battlefields are really "enemy combatants."

The court said the doctrine that it was upholding is enshrined in the Constitution, even though it candidly acknowledged that it could not cite a single prior case in which an American or English court had exercised such power in a case involving aliens held overseas.

I guess this means we'll need to send Federal judges down to Gitmo to preside over these cases.  In order to protect the constitutional rights of foreign detainees, no intimidating US military personnel should be allowed in the court room.  I'm sure that the judges, lawyers and detainees can work their way through the legal questions of the day so as to deliver true justice.  Sadly, we might lose a few judges if some of those detainees turn out to be actual terrorists with little respect for American court room etiquette, but that's a price we all should be willing to pay to preserve the Constitution.