This is literally yesterday's news, but the United States Supreme Court has consolidated several cases brought on behalf of the prisoners held at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in order to decide the following question:
Whether United States courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.
This is momentous stuff, even though a jurisdictional issue may seem banal. The whole reason why BushCo chose to site the prisoners in Cuba was because they thought U.S. law would not govern there. Obviously, the Administration doesn't - or at least didn't - want the prisoners to have any legal process. Given that the prisoners are now such a potent propaganda tool to use against us and have apparently yielded whatever useful intelligence they are going to give us, I would not be surprised if the administration would be relieved to lose this case, just to have some kind of resolution. (In addition, the wingers would be outraged by such a decision, which would redound to the Republicans' political favor.)
Yeah...a victory would sort of give us a win-win scenario. The right to process would get a boost and some Republicans who oppose it get another issue to scare people and campaign on.
I've always wondered...and its possible that I am just not as schooled in the law on military bases as I am on, say, foreclosure or construction defect litigation (well, gee, thats really helpful here - what is the swell potential of the soil at guantanamo? inquiring minds want to know)...
It has always been my understanding that any American embassy or consulate is considered sovereign US territory, even though it is in a foreign country. I may have gotten this impression from too much TV as a teenager.
So if a US embassy or consulate is US territory, then why not a base or military installation as well? In other words, if we had an embassy in Cuba, that would be considered sovereign territory of the US. If you can argue that such a military base is sovereign US territory, then this argument that they are being held in a foreign country is only a technicallity in the same way that Lesotho (and to a lesser extent, Swaziland) is completely within South Africa, but still an independent nation. If they are on US soil (via status of consulate, military base, etc.) then they are not on "foreign soil" as is so frequently argued with the Camp X-Ray prisoners and should in some way be entitled to process at least within the federal courts.
Sort of a ramble, but just thinking outloud. I may be off base about the status of military facilities.
Russ
Legal Memo-Random
Posted by: Russ | November 11, 2003 at 07:41 PM