You Have No Right Not to Be Tortured

The Supreme Court refused to hear a case of four detainees bringing suit against Rumsfeld, et al:

Obama’s Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad…. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act – a statute that applies by its terms to all “persons” – did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law. The lower court also dismissed the detainees’ claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.” … “One set of claims are dismissed because torture is said to be a foreseeable consequence of military detention,” [a lawyer] said. “How will the parents of our troops captured in future foreign wars react to that?”

via Corporations Are Persons, Gitmo Detainees Aren’t.

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