Please don’t

Here’s President George W. Bush’s reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling that Guantanamo Bay detainees are entitled to habeas corpus hearings, according to the AP:

“It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented,” Bush said. “And that dissent was based upon their serious concerns about U.S. national security.”

Bush said his administration will study the ruling. “We’ll do this with this in mind — to determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate so we can safely say to the American people, ‘We’re doing everything we can to protect you.’”

Really, please don’t “do everything” – don’t risk the Constitution and our civil liberties in the name of safety. As Benjamin Franklin said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.”

Key quote from the ruling:

Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers … Within the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person.