Reading around

Below I complained that I was getting tired of referencing 1984 over and over. Could we please come up with a new proof text, I asked. As if reading my mind, Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia has issued a judgment on the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The Supreme Court, you may recall, has ruled that the prisoners can invoke Habeas Corpus. That is to say, they can demand that federal court determine whether they are imprisoned legally. So seven prisoners have petitioned Leon's court. The NYT reports that Leon:

said the seven prisoners who brought a claim in his court could not be granted what they had asked for, writs of habeas corpus that would have required the federal courts to consider whether they were lawfully detained. . . . He made a distinction between the right to file for a habeas corpus petition before a judge and the right to obtain one.

I personally want to thank Judge Leon for answering my plea and turning our attention to Catch-22 and The Trial as explanatory texts for our time. Variety is the spice of life.