Bush's wartime powers challenged

[AGENDA21]

His wartime powers undercut once before by the Supreme Court, President Bush could take a second hit in a case in which Osama bin Laden's former driver is seeking to head off a trial before military officers.

At stake is more than whether Salim Ahmed Hamdan, after nearly four years at the Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, goes on trial for war crimes before a special military commission.

Analysts say if the high court rejects Bush's plan to hold such trials for the first time since the aftermath of World War II, it could rein in the president's expanded powers in pursuing and punishing suspected terrorists.

In addition to special military trials for Hamdan and others, the Bush administration since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has claimed it has the authority to eavesdrop on telephone conversations without court oversight, aggressively interrogate foreigners and imprison people without giving them traditional legal rights.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060326/REPOSITORY/603260395/1013/48HOURS

[Time for change]

1. A very important case

Too bad we don't have a Supreme Court with more integrity.

[Just Me]

3. Indeed. The decision will either point the way to dictatorship or,...

,...remind the executive that the Constitution indeed created two other branches to balance AND limit that third powerful branch. For the sake of our children, I hope like hell the SCOTUS rejects the neoconsters' "unitary executive" theory. It has no place in a democratic nation.

(snip)

"The stakes are very high for this administration because it has predicated all of its policies in this war on terror on the principle that the president as commander in chief cannot be constrained by Congress or the courts," said Scott Silliman, a former military lawyer who teaches at Duke University.

(snip)

Very important case!!!

[mmonk]

2. What war time powers?

The only war time powers are those granted as commander in chief concerning the battle field by congress.

[C_U_L8R]

4. Exactly... What WAR?

A war on terrorism is no more a war than is a war on malapropism

[lonestarnot]

5. Yeah, what war?