U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer tells
Newsmax TV the nation's highest court must now think internationally because of the growing number of cases that have global implications.
"You have to know something about what's going on beyond our shores, whether its law or practices or copyright or security," Breyer said in an interview with J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime."
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"All kinds of things in order to get the right answer to a question about American law. [It's] maybe 10 or 15 percent of our cases now."
Breyer is the author of
"The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities," published by Knopf, which discusses the court's expanded responsibilities in handling legal questions with an eye on their international repercussions.
Breyer also told Hayworth that the fine line between ensuring liberty, and at the same time providing for security, is not always easy to interpret.
"I wish I could tell you that my book answers that question. What it does tell you is I think the key to the question was in one of the four cases concerning detainees at Guantanamo.
"The four detainees brought four cases in our court against the president or the secretary of defense and they won each of those cases, the detainees," he said.
The key phrase in general terms in my opinion was Sandra O'Connor's, which I joined, which says the Constitution does not write the president a blank check to circumvent civil liberties … That's basically what she said … Why agree? Because the alternative led to all kinds of horrors."
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