Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

In this piece, NPR's legal correspondent, Nina Totenberg, presents a detailed analysis of the Supreme Court's June 2006 ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (9/5/06 - 9:19). Hamdan's main crime is having served as Osama bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan, although, as one commentator noted, after World War II we interviewed Hitler's driver but neither arrested nor otherwise prosecuted him.

In any case, in the Hamdan decision the high court (in a 5-3 decision) ruled against the system set up by President Bush to try accused war criminals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Experts are calling this the "most important ruling on executive power in decades, or perhaps ever." Read more at Wikipedia.com.

Classroom thoughts

• There are lots of legal peculiarities in this or any court ruling, but the key issue here is clear: What are the limits, if any, on the executive power of the President in the one area where everyone acknowledges the President has the greatest power, that is, in the area of protecting the national security? In other words, are there conditions regarding national security that empowers the President to act contrary to, or without regard for, existing U.S. laws?
  
  
• A related issue here is what to make of exceptions. In other words, even if one concedes that under extraordinary circumstances, the President should be able to act without regard to existing laws, the question becomes what a circumstance truly extraordinary? More specifically, is the "war on terror," which has been going on for at least five years and has no clear end in sight, such a circumstance? Is the age in which we are now living really all that exceptional?
  
  
• The NPR piece focuses on the efforts of attorney Neal Katyal as the David in this David-and-Goliath story. Why do "Davids" make such appealing heroes, and do you think Katyal is one?