Explain how the courts have impacted the executive power to confront terrorism. Use examples from the text to illustrate your answer

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• While the struggle between Congress and the president continued and legal scholars argued positions about executive authority, the courts began to review some of the issues involved in counterterrorism.
• One of the first issues involved the detention of enemy combatants in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
• The government contended it could try the defendants in special military tribunals, apart from normal criminal prosecutions and military law; judges were not swayed by this argument.
• Both civilian and military courts, using similar language, handed down decisions blocking the government's desire to establish special military courts that violate the civil rights.
• Defendants are entitled to contest the basis of their arrests; the government cannot hold a person without a hearing to ensure that an arrest is justified by probable cause – the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees in Guantánamo could contest the charges against them.
• The Supreme Court declared that the military tribunal system established for enemy combatants was illegal.
• A military court in Guantánamo dismissed cases against two defendants at Guantánamo Bay on the basis of the earlier Supreme Court decision.
• Although the Bush administration won some of its early battles to gain more power, the courts have been increasingly limiting executive power.
• One of the primary reasons is that the president acted without specific congressional authority; an analysis in the Wall Street Journal reported that the Bush administration did not seek such authorization after 9/11 because it feared Congress would not grant it.
• The courts seem to be demonstrating that any effort to fight terrorism will be done within the rule of law.