Friday, June 13, 2008

Federalist Paper No. 69 and the Boumediene decision

Boumediene vastly expands the wartime power of the federal courts and contracts the power of the elected branches of government to provide for the common defense.

With respect to the executive branch, Alexander Hamilton's comments in Federalist Paper #69 are important: "Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority."

Boumedienne will be a blemish on the Court for decades.

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