Abstract

Guantánamo, Revisited

When the Supreme Court hears oral argument April 20 on the cases challenging the legality of the detentions at Guant& aacute; namo Bay, Cuba, it will confront the most dramatic conflict between liberty and security it has considered since World War II. The Bush Administration claims that the "war on terrorism" requires that it have unchecked power to detain "enemy combatants"--however the President defines the "war" and its "combatants" Lawyers who have challenged the Administration's position, without even getting to consult with the detainees they represent, maintain that if the rule of law means anything, the President cannot lock up human beings indefinitely and deprive them of access to any court. The fact that the Court agreed to consider the Guantánamo detainees' claims--at a time when all the lower federal courts had ruled that the doors to the courts were closed--offers some basis for hope. But the Court's record on matters of national security and non citizens' rights is not encouraging. The best hope for a rights-affirming ruling may rest on the Court's jealousy of its own power rather than on any concern for those who have languished at Guantánamo for more than two years.