And so it begins

There are 196 habeas cases in front of the US District Court right now; Wednesday the Dept. of Justice notified the court that, subsequent to Bush’s signing of the Military Commissions bill, that court no longer has jurisdiction over those cases.

Immediately after Bush signed the act into law Tuesday, the Justice Department sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asserting the new authorities and informing the court that it no longer had jurisdiction over a combined habeas case that had been under consideration since 2004. The U.S. District Court cases, which had been stayed pending the appeals court decision, were similarly invalid, the administration informed that court on Wednesday.
[snip]
The administration’s persistence on the issue “demonstrates how difficult it is for the courts to enforce [the clause] in the face of a resolute executive branch that is bound and determined to resist it,” said Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor involved in the detainee cases.

I hope to God the current members of SCOTUS still have enough integrity to say that this new law is unconstitutional.