excuse me, if one president says "a", the next says "b", that's the rule of law?

i would have guessed it was the rule of presidents, who decide when and if they will support any particular law. just because you like 'b', doesn't make it different in character from 'a'.

Al, the difference isn't in what I think is law -- I've thought Congress had the power to pass laws throughout. The difference is in whether the president draws his authority to execute law from pre-established means, or whether he, as Bush did, makes up authority and law from whole cloth in order to do what he wants.

Saturn is right, Al. Whatever we all perceive as law doesn't matter. Law is writ and doesn't change on the whims of any one person.

As I said many years back now Bush need only amend the Constitution for his disgraceful actions to be legal and outside of what people like me often term 'expressly un-American'.

But changing laws is not as easy as changing your political message or the way in which you conduct a war.

This only represents a step in the right direction and as much was said. Great post.

Actually the terminology was changed to be within the guidelines of the international War Crimes Court. This provides a means to continue to hold these detainees also it provides a means to move them to another country for detention. The term "enemy combatants" was derived after 9/11 to hold these men who had not actually say fired a gun or blew something up, but the possibility they would or could was evident. But they could not be held as POW's. Legally

I agree with you this is a big step.

What is so scary about the last eight years--where an administration repeatedly subverted the law, with a complicit media who bought the flimsy defense that such steps could be justified on the pretext of "keeping us safe"--is that there are so many evil subversions that must be undone. Well-meaning as it may be, it is always a temptation for the new administration to pick and choose which of the unlawful, unconstitutional, or treaty-abrogating actions to disavow and which to continue doing. Administratively and militarily inept beyond belief, it is difficult to square their failures with how quickly and thoroughly they were able to amass power and subvert 200 years of law. It is so mind-boggling, I don't believe people yet completely understand the depth and breadth of what they have done to us. We're barely done with traipsing out of this mudpit, and just started with washing off the stinky mud.

It IS about time. But to be fair, still less than two months in, pretty expedient. Rated

The amount of intelligence gathered from these "detainee's" has been used to prevent and preclude future attacks. To be tried in the US court system would undermine National Security. Non-useful detainees have been released and returned to their countries. Some who have been released have already attacked Americans in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have been implicated in other terrorists attacks both in Pakistan and India. These people being held are dangerous both to the US and other countries. They are terrorists!

Saturn, great post. I think it is an important step in righting the ship of state.

I tend to agree with Rich that we are only scratching the surface, but it comes down to a fundamental question of principles - either we are a nation of law or we aren't. Either we are part of the international law community or we aren't.

Amen Citizen-ster!

This is good news. The fact is that the Bush administration relied solely on their own stubborn insistence that they were above the rule of law. The Executive Branch was in collusion with a Congress dominated by it's lock stepping cronies.

That the corrupted control of all three branches of government didn't result in permanent and impossible to reform damage, indicates further corruption: They didn't want the opposition to have the same powers in the future.

I still want justice. I want the miscreants hauled before the courts, tried, found guilty, and punished.

Older/Exasperated, you dont know, and you have no possible way of knowing if valuable "intelligence" was gathered from the "detainees". You only repeat what you have been told. You are presuming the statements to be true. The statement about "gathered intelligence" also supports their action. The 9/11 attack was a fluke of timing. It had never been tried before, and there were no measures in place to prevent it. It was new. The fact that a similar thing has not occurred is due the the fact that it has been done. Not due to "gathered intelligence" from "detainees". America will likely be attacked again by someone. It happens. Always has. But 19 dudes in 4 planes does not constitute a serious threat to the United Stated. It is merely a tragedy. The biggest threat to the United States is our own propensity to over react.

Older/exasperated, your position does not hold water. That argument about how intelligence gathered from detainees prevented further attacks echoes for me the whole "Bush kept us safe after 9/11" line. How do we KNOW that? People who repeat that line are trying to prove a negative. I keep thinking of Rumsfeld, when no one could find any WMDs in Iraq, saying "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That's just smarmy wordplay.

This whole "enemy combatant" designation was used to get around having to observe the Geneva Conventions. So our government could torture these guys and hold them indefinitely without charges and with no way to appeal the detention. Sure, some of the "non-useful" ones were eventually released, but they were held in cages for five or six years first. Some were held in solitary confinement until they went literally insane. And not nearly all of them were terrorists. Many were innocent people swept up by our military or turned over to us under false pretenses.

We're not some Third World banana republic. If we want to be a world leader we have to set an example. We have to live up to the ideals we espouse, not just pay them lip service. There are ways to try people in open court without violating national security. Arguing otherwise was just an easy out for the last administration to keep doing whatever it wanted.

And if a couple of guilty ones go free, that's the price we pay for living in a free and open society (as opposed to, say, Iraq when Sadaam was in charge.) I personally would rather let a few off the hook after a fair trial then see the freedoms I enjoy living in America curtailed.

Having done this, he'll need to act soon to avoid allegations that he is now in violation of international law. It would be ironic and sad in the extreme if Bush were not prosecuted under international law because he didn't recognize that as the prevailing law, but Obama was because he did. A transition between opposing theories, however they arise, is always tricky. The next step will be interesting. But I agree with your general assessment.

So polite , you are right, sidestepping the Geneva Convention is in the context of what I stated only I used the words POW. I also heed both Bill and Ken's and your position, along with Saturn's. Mine was just my own opinion. Whether mine is right or wrong, yours are just as valuable. Thank You. O/E

For more information on clarifying what is actually the Supreme Courts decision on this matter see: Hamdi vs Rumsfeld 548U557 (2006).

Professor Loo has a different take on the direction we're moving - or failing to move to.

Beck - The fact that a similar thing has not occurred is due the the fact that it has been done. Not due to "gathered intelligence" from "detainees".

And just what is your knowledge as to the truth of that statement.
You just said the other poster had no evidence of his statements and was just repeating what he was feed. So where is your evidence?

zumalicious - I still want justice. I want the miscreants hauled before the courts, tried, found guilty, and punished.

Do yo want justice for all the miscreants. Why don't we start with all the congresspeople. Lets have the IRS and the Attorney General to really investigate them all. Why don't we start with squeaky clean Obama. Wonder how many sleezy deals he has involved in with those shiny Chicago politics. I am sure he is as innocent as they come, right?

Saturn - Can we have rule of law applied here? What law can be more fundamental than the Articles of the Constitution.

Article 4 - Section 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

I'm no lawyer, but I believe the word "shall" in the law never means "may" or "maybe". It means clearly it will be done and must be enforced. Are we protecting the States against invasion, or are we promoting it? I consider millions of people illegally crossing state borders to be an invasion. Why is the the fed gov not guaranteeing the protection so clearly defined in the law?

Will I think it is because every president simply chooses to obey whatever laws they want. In principal, ignoring illegal immigration is just as wrong as ignoring any other law.

Thanks, everyone, for the comments, and sorry for the delay -- I took an Internet holiday, which I highly recommend from time to time.

Eric, great point. And definitely only a step, you're right -- there's a long legal path, and path of perception, yet to travel.

KoB, you're right, it's pretty swift -- the about time was meant more for the past administration, not the current.

My understanding, O/E, is that we have moved within the ICC rulings, and that this was part of the motivation but that a second part was to move the actions away from being based strictly upon executive orders an privilege and into the realm of made law.

Rich, and LPS, yeah, it's been and continues to be a terrifying time in terms of the exercise of power that's left a terrible scar. And good point, Rich: There's definitely continued surveillance needed to see what orders and abused this president chooses not to roll back.

Thanks, Bill.

Zuma, I'm still hoping for prosecutions, as well, and somehow growing more hopeful.

Kent, surely the Bush administration's failure to recognize the ICC won't preclude it from recognizing his wrongs. I know we haven't (and still haven't) signed on there, but there's a significant case to be made against Bush no matter whether he thought himself externally responsible or not, and perhaps because he saw no higher earthly power than himself.

Bill, So Polite, Older/E, I think you have an interesting discussion of positions going here. While my opinion tends to rest closer to So Polite's on this debate, I appreciated the discussion, and the suggestion for further reading, O/E. Thanks.

Harry, thanks for the link; I'll check it out.

Joseph, on the topic at hand, I'll leave it to Bill Beck if he'd like to answer your question, and say certainly, we can have rule of law applied here, and do. I can't make the leap you seem to make between terrorism and illegal immigration, at least not in the context of a discussion of the legal authority to detain suspects.