The 1354th. Meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was held on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 at 5:00 p.m. at the Mather Campus Center of Trinity College, Hartford. The Vice President of CAAS, Professor Borden Painter, welcomed the group, which included many students of the College as well as members of the Academy. He introduced the CAAS President, Dr. Ernest Kohorn, who also welcomed the group and said that this was the 1354th meeting of the Academy. He announced the award to the Academy by the Association for the Study of Connecticut History of the Homer D.Babbidge Jr. Award, for its outstanding contribution to the study of Connecticut with the CAAS publication of "Voices of the New Republic: Connecticut Towns 1800-1832". Dr. Kohorn described the publication as the result of the Bicentennial Celebration in 1999 and the work of many members of the Academy. He announced the election of one new member, Jennifer Olive Briggs, the Volunteer Coordinator of the Peabody Museum at Yale.

Professor Painter introduced the speaker for the evening, Adrienne Fulco, Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Public Policy, and the Director of the Public Policy and Law program at Trinity College. The title of Professor Fulco's talk was "The President, the Supreme Court and the War on Terror" and was focused on the exquisite tension between security and civil liberties in times of war.

After the attack on September 11 2001, George W. Bush began to expand his presidential powers in order to safeguard the country. Congress passed his Patriot Act although most of the members had not read the Bill before voting for it. This Bill reduced the oversight powers of the courts and jeopardized the civil liberties of individuals. Both sides of the political spectrum joined in the criticism of this expansion of executive power and in June 2003 the Supreme Court ruled on six important cases that challenged the government's right to detain "enemy combatants" without due process. The questions before the Court were who had ultimate authority over the naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba and could the government detain prisoners without review by the courts. In a 6-3 decision it was stated that the courts had authority over Gauntanamo Bay and that any foreigner detained there had the right to due process.

The next cases dealt with the President's authority to designate U.S.Citizens as enemy combatants without due process and dealt with three particular citizens who had been detained. Although the lower courts disagreed about one of the cases, the Supreme Court determined that the President had no right to deprive an individual of his rights and asserted its judicial authority in each of the three cases. In conclusion it appears that the Justices are skeptical of presidential power and assert that it is they alone who have the right to say how far a president can go - a state of war is not a blank check for a president to restrict individual rights. The Court was affirming the United States' commitment to the rule of law and the check and balance of the branches of the government.

During the question period Professor Fulco said that the effects of all this was that military tribunals had been set up in Guantanamo Bay though the question remained whether this was sufficient. She agreed with one questioner who pointed out that although the Court might make these pronouncements it did not seem to have authority to carry them out.