Two Federal courts, in separate decisions, addressed the issue of government power versus individual rights.

The New York ruling in the case of Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomb" suspect, is a sharp rebuke to the US detention of hundreds of alleged terrorists imprisoned without legal recourse on the grounds that they are unlawful "enemy combatants". The court ruled that the president had no constitutional authority "to detain as an enemy combatant an American citizen seized on American soil outside a zone of combat".

Mr Padilla, a US citizen, was arrested in May 2002 in Chicago and has spent 18 months imprisoned at a South Carolina military base without access to a lawyer.

The court ruled that the detention overstepped Mr Bush's constitutional authority and that Congress had in no way authorised the president to declare US citizens to be enemy combatants. [Court rules Bush has no power to hold suspect]

While expunging citizens' rights by simply calling citizens a name, as above, is a relatively clear constitutional issue and the administration is on the wrong side of it, "The Bush administration said it would seeka stay of the court ruling."

The second case isn't that simple.

Hours later, the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco ruled also 2-1 that the Bush administration lacked authority to imprison foreign "enemy combatants" indefinitely.

The court said indefinite detention was inconsistent with U.S. law and raised serious concerns under international law.

"The two cases are different. It's questionable whether people captured during a war in Afghanistan are entitled to any of the protections of the U.S. Constitution," said Robert Levy, a constitutional expert with the libertarian Cato Institute. [Court Decisions Show Legal Backlash to Bush]

I found the first case particularly interesting because it involves the distinction between a Democracy and the American constitutional Republic.

As a form of government, a representative Democracy is essentially omnipotent mob rule through surrogates - individuals have no rights except as part of the majority, and must submit absolutely to the will of the majority and their representatives. We see some of that in state initiatives and recalls.

The Founding Fathers were especially sensitive to the "excesses of democracy" and built the American system to protect the "unalienable rights" of citizens. The resulting Republic elects representatives based on a majority (of one form or another), but these representatives must then operate within the constraints of the constitution as a protection of individuals from the democratic "tyranny of the mob."

Let's hope the Supremes understand the difference.