On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 09:16:23 -0500, John Gaquin wrote:


"thunder" wrote in message

.....that he would limit civil liberties to American citizens. In point
of law, they are extended to anyone on American soil, citizens and
non-citizens, and I personally think they should be extended to anyone
under American control, e.g. Guantanamo. If my assumption was in error,
my apologies.

No apology necessary, we deal here with a great deal of personal opinion
and interpretation. While true that we have, under law extended general
constitutional protections to anyone on our soil, I believe we have done
so at our discretion. In truth, I don't know any courts' holdings on the
subject, but my readings do not show me that we need *guarantee*
constitutional protections to non-citizens.

I'm not a lawyer, and you may be right. That discretion may be close to
precedent, but I couldn't find anything definitive searching the net. I
did find this debate:

http://www.generationvote.com/vnews/.../3ce1ce2357bd7