"It is true that before today the Court has never held that noncitizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure [i.e., formal legal] sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution. But the cases before us lack any precise historical parallel. They involve individuals detained by executive order for the duration of a conflict that, if measured from September 11, 2001, to the present, is already among the longest wars in American history. See Oxford Companion to American Military History 849 (1999). The detainees, moreover, are held in a territory that, while technically not part of the United States, is under the complete and total control of our Government. Under these circumstances the lack of a precedent on point is no barrier to our holding."

In short, the age-old excuse that things are so different today that silly old legal principles no long apply.