July 4 is usually fun - picnic, fireworks, a day off. But it is also a time to reflect on the founding of the country - our independence from England, and, as I've written about before, some of the values that served as the foundation for the new country. Today's lesson comes courtesy of Boumrdiene v Bush, the recent Supreme Court case involving a detainee in Guantanamo suing the President for holding him without due process. The Court sides with the detainee and provides a nice discussion about habeas corpus, aka The Great Writ, which is the mechanism used to... continue reading »