Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Dahlia Lithwick on Hamdi and Padilla

You can find the piece here.

Long story short: I don't feel like I was unnecessarily overwrought about the worst possible outcome of these cases. Lithwick:

I think today mostly stands for an enormous victory in the efforts to balance tyranny with reason. As a practical matter, I can't imagine how all these future terror trials can possibly work. But as someone largely terrified that today might have ended with a blank check for the chief executive, I think the court got it more right than not. (emphasis mine)


I would have preferred the court came down more on the Scalia/Stevens dissent, since I prefer not to build the executive's war powers on the bricks of individual rights. Nevertheless, this is far preferable to a despotic executive disappearing American citizens.

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