"the constitutional case of our time" -- "whether the Constitution applies to the government"

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ksm25-2008may25,0,1499491,full.story

Defending KSM, 'the most hated man in the world'
Joshua Roberts / For The Times
NAVY LAWYER: “I think it’s the constitutional case of our time,” says Prescott L. Prince, a Navy Reserve judge advocate general.
Navy lawyer Prescott Prince's client is self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:28 PM PDT, May 24, 2008

WASHINGTON -- They make an unlikely pair, the world's most notorious captured terrorist and the Navy captain assigned to defend him against war-crimes charges that could lead to his execution. But together, the two men are quietly embarking on a legal odyssey that could last years, and may ultimately help define the constitutional parameters of the United States' role in the global war on terrorism.

On three occasions over the last few weeks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described orchestrator of the Sept. 11 attacks, has sat with his legs shackled to a chair in a cramped, windowless briefing room at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed has probably spent most of the last five years in similar leg irons, fielding questions from American officials.

But now, for the first time, the man who has been sitting across from him is a potential ally, a Navy Reserve judge advocate general named Prescott L. Prince.

snip>

Prince, a Southern lawyer who only a year ago was running a small civilian defense practice, expects the case to go on for years and culminate in a landmark Supreme Court decision. To him, it's not only the welfare of his infamous client that matters, but also protecting the integrity of the Constitution, which he says the Bush administration has trampled by coercing information out of Mohammed and subjecting him to a system of military justice that is stacked against him.

"I think it's the constitutional case of our time," Prince, 53, said in a recent interview in his office, U.S. and Navy flags front and center on his desk. "Because in the 221st year of America, the question is whether the Constitution applies to the government."

snip>


AND a recommended diary by Magnifico on dKos about the article and the case:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/25/54522/3135/340/522400

to which it applies.

hell is wrong with this country? Has language and reason gotten so degraded that we can even have such a case? OK, I'm officially depressed.

And this case will be an example and a test.

The government can do no wrong.