Supreme Court decides U.S. Constitution applies at Guantánamo

From the NYT, Thursday's Supreme Court decision regarding the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

...granted detainees the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts, meaning that federal judges will now have the power to check the government’s claims that the 270 men still held there are dangerous terrorists.

[...]

Detainees’ lawyers have long claimed that the government will not be able to justify the detention of many of the men. Pentagon officials, on the other hand, have maintained that classified evidence establishes that many of them are dangerous. The federal courts will now have the power to sort through those claims.

And regarding Habeas Corpus (a means of seeking relief from unlawful detention, such as that a prisoner must be charged with a specific crime or released, a prisoner's right to an attorney and the right to present evidence of innocence):

The question of whether detainees have habeas rights has long been a central issue in the battle over Guantánamo. Scores of such cases had been in the courts before Congress sought to strip federal judges of the power to hear them. Habeas suits by virtually all the 270 detainees are now expected to commence or be revived, lawyers said.

Such cases give federal judges broad powers to review the government’s reasons for holding a prisoner. But once a judge is satisfied that there is a legitimate basis, a case can end quickly with a ruling in the government’s favor.

“Habeas is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a detainees’ lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “It just provides a fair, legitimate and independent sorting process to determine who should and who should not be held.”

Update: McCain and Obama Split on Justices’ Guantánamo Ruling

McCain: "...it obviously concerns me. These are unlawful combatants; they’re not American citizens."

Obama: "This is an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus."