In response to today's landmark Supreme Court decision granting habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees, Lindsey Graham has decided he wants to amend the United State Constitution to strip it of any pesky kinds of civil rights protections that have existed since the Magna Carta.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed Thursday to do everything in his power to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying that "if necessary," he would push for a constitutional amendment to modify the decision.
Graham blasted the decision as "irresponsible and outrageous," echoing the sentiments of many congressional Republicans and President Bush.
That will be a hard amendment to get past the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Patrick Leahy, who said in response to the ruling,
There is nothing more fundamental than the right of habeas corpus. In three separate decisions, the Supreme Court in recent years has rejected this administration’s erosion of fundamental rights. These protections set the United States apart from those who wish to harm us. This decision echoes earlier court opinions that have solidified our constitutional system of checks and balances. The administration has rolled back essential rights that have long guided our nation’s conscience.
Today’s Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush is a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration’s flawed detention policies, and a vindication for those who have also argued from the beginning that it was unwise as well as unconstitutional.
A majority of the Court has ruled that provisions in the 2006 Military Commissions Act designed to strip away all habeas rights for detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center are unconstitutional. The Court has ruled that the Constitutional right to habeas corpus extends to territories, including Guantanamo Bay, where the United States exercises de facto control. The Court further held that the administration’s detention procedures were constitutionally inadequate, and that those detainees who have been determined to be "unlawful enemy combatants" are entitled to seek habeas relief in Federal court.
The Court’s 5-4 decision sustains the long-held and bipartisan beliefs that I and others have always maintained: Congress made a grave error when, for the first time in its history, it voted to strip habeas corpus rights, instead leaving in place hopelessly flawed procedures to determine whether detainees can be held indefinitely with no meaningful court review merely by the Executive’s decree.
Of course, the Senate made a grave error when it voted to confirm John Roberts and Samuel Alito. That's an error that the SCOTUS won't be able to fix for them.
Every member of the Congress that approved the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act, now correctly reversed by the Court, will have the moral stain of having been a party to it besmirching their careers and their legacies forever. History will be only slightly less unforgiving to the Congress which allowed the grave abuses of the Constitution by the Bush administration than it will be to Bush himself. So no member of the Senate should be quick to follow Graham further down that path to complete ignominy.