Read these blogs: Michael Froomkins’ discourse.net; Goldstein Howe’s SCOTUS blog (this item in particular)…. and this dissent: Stevens in Rumsfeld v. Padilla.
Executive detention of subversive citizens, like detention of enemy soldiers to keep them off the battlefield, may sometimes be justified to prevent persons from launching or becoming missiles of destruction. It may not, however, be justified by the naked interest in using unlawful procedures to extract information. Incommunicado detention for months on end is such a procedure. Whether the information so procured is more or less reliable than that acquired by more extreme forms of torture is of no conse-quence. For if this Nation is to remain true to the ideals symbolized by its flag, it must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the forces of tyranny.
No Such Weblog 