Wednesday, March 29, 2006

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan on March 28. News reports about the oral argument can be found on the PBS program Online NewsHour here (15:15 min, transcript with a few mistakes). Talk of the Nation on NPR has a long (47:55 min.) discussion of the case here. The oral arguments themselves can be heard on C-Span by clicking here. Georgetown University has made them available in .mp3 format here. There is no transcript yet, but a version of the audio with "subtitles" will probably be available soon. The Hamdan case is extremely complicated and has some accessory questions as well. For instance, should Justice Scalia recuse himself because of remarks he made in Switzerland? You can find a discussion on Boston public radio with the Newsweek journalist who broke the story here. Another question — did two Senators try to deceive the Court concerning the legislative history of one of the laws being interpreted? Emily Bazelon, a journalist for the online magazine Slate, raises the question here and can be heard on NPR here.