Ohiocore

The Washington Post editorializes on Freeing Mr. Hamdi:

"What remains objectionable -- what looms as more objectionable than ever, now that the government has acknowledged Mr. Hamdi's unimportance -- is the unnecessary assault on civil liberties that the administration led in his case. For three years the administration insisted that Mr. Hamdi be held incommunicado and without any semblance of normal legal process or rights despite his citizenship. For most of his detention he was prevented from meeting with his lawyer."

Not only was he abominably evil, in the government's view, but also some sort of superspy mind-control wizard:

"In 2002 the government contended in court that merely allowing him to meet with counsel 'jeopardizes compelling national security interests' and would 'interfere with if not irreparably harm the military's ongoing efforts to gather intelligence.' Mr. Hamdi, it warned, might even 'pass concealed messages through unwitting intermediaries.'"

I'm sure there's a lot of precendent for that. Those JAG's and Federal Circuit lawyers with enough security clearance to take cases like this are unwittingly used as messenger pigeons by crafty 20-year-old citizens terrorists all the time. It's a shame they can't get anybody smarter in those jobs that would notice things like secret messages threatening to our national security interests taped to their backs. Those lawyers and interrogators on the Government's side are goddamn geniuses, though, the way they figured it out without themselves being used as unwitting messengers. How do they get so tough? Do they take echinacea "anti-mind control" pills or something? foil hats? the protection of Dr. X? Thank you Beneficent Government for protecting us from the nefarious invisible powers of the Dark Wizard!

To be fair, the government did present a case for Hamdi's detention, specifically, a plainly incompetent one:

"The government insisted that the courts authorize Mr. Hamdi's detention purely on the basis of a two-page affidavit from a mid-level Defense Department bureaucrat who claimed no personal knowledge of the case. An American citizen could be plucked out of all of the protections of the civilian justice system with no significant judicial review and no opportunity to rebut the facts behind the decision, the administration argued."

Habeas? Schmabeas.
Habeas Corpus, the sine qua non foundation of western law, does not apply.
The Constitution does not apply.
The Bill of Rights does not apply.
"We're the Government and we'll do what we want" applies.
"And you can't stop us" applies.

I should also note that one stipulation of Hamdi's so-called "release agreement" is to indemnify the Government for any injuries suffered during his detention. See how meticulous they are about the "rule of law"?