The decision in the Boumediene v. Bush case has been debated endlessly (including right here on Terra Firma), and I'm not going to retread all that ground and get into the debate on Guantanamo and foreign combatants' rights.
The more important implication of this case may have been overlooked by most people. Did Anthony Kennedy say the Constitution is unconstitutional?? Take a look at this excellent analysis and you decide.
The second implication may be stated in brief: the Court has, whether by intention or merely tacitly, fired a shot across the bow of all those who might contemplate reining in its most egregious excesses, by jurisdiction-stripping and defiance: such endeavours will be regarded as unconstitutional, as violations of the fundamental law, the actual text notwithstanding. It should not be doubted that this precedent will both be invoked in the future, and exercise a chilling effect on the discourse of a dying republic. And such a nation will not have a legislature; it will have a Politboro.
