Centerfield

Yup, good for the system... It works. I guess I would rather have them be rebuked for being too tough, than have people die because they were not tough enough. Of course the ACLU will be foaming at the mouth to make some ridiculous connection between this decision and the Patriot Act.

Yes, I continue to support the Patriot Act. As far as I can tell, the Administration positions ruled against were not related to or supported by it.

Obvious and overdue. Scary to me that one of these decisions had a 5-4 vote.

Not much noise out there about the other recent decision regarding the finding that you can be arrested for failure to identify yourself. Apparently, even though we have the right to remain silent AND the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, you might get locked up if you don't answer a cop's questions.

Reason's Tim Lynch has a good take. I think the court has lately (last decade or so) been issuing a series of confusing rulings regarding civil rights that taken as a whole seem to lack consistent overarching guiding principles. It seems pretty likely to me that if a 2nd Bush term yields a few more conservative appointments, the court may back away from past principles in favor of a much more agreeable view towards authoritarianism. I know many of you guys are so pro-security in the face of terrorism that you dismiss such views, but IMO there has been a constant whittling going on. We're getting nickled and dimed to death.

I have to agree with bk on this one. I just wish more of the actions of courts could be front page news so that people can see and judge for themselves about such issues like identifying (sp) yourself, etc.