In keeping with the court’s general reluctance to interfere with the president’s war-making powers, its rulings in the war on terror began relatively modestly. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in 2004, pertained only to United States citizens detained as enemy combatants on American soil; the court held that they must get a “meaningful opportunity” to challenge the factual basis for their detention.

The second ruling, in Rasul v. Bush, came soon after the scandal at Abu Ghraib. Though momentous, it was still limited. The court found, 6-3, that Guantànamo Bay was within United States jurisdiction and subject to its laws, meaning detainees there were entitled to some sort of due process in American courts. It didn’t specify the process, nor suggest that Congress couldn’t amend a law through which detainees could access the courts.

The 2006 Hamdan case concerned the military commissions that President Bush established at Guantánamo Bay to try some detainees in the aftermath of 9/11. Here the court’s majority went further. It found that by creating the commissions without asking Congress to agree, the president had overstepped his authority under the Constitution’s separation of powers. Moreover, it held that the president was obligated to honor America’s commitments under the Geneva Conventions.

In response, the administration succeeded in getting Congress to authorize the military commissions and stripping the Guantánamo detainees of the right to habeas corpus. Which brings us to last week’s ruling in Boumediene  and the 5-4 decision to restore that ancient right.

The easiest explanation for the rash of rebukes is that this administration has simply been unusually aggressive in asserting executive authority stemming from 9/11, a singularly devastating attack in which terrorists killed thousands in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

“I think it’s less about the court and more about the executive,” says Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago and the author of “Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime.” “The executive has made extreme claims that are lawfully and constitutionally unfounded, even giving him the same benefit of the doubt that the government has received in prior cases.”

As the administration sees it, every action it has taken since Sept. 11 isn’t only justified by national security concerns in an age of terrorism, but consistent with the president’s historically expanded powers during wartime. Even the Constitution leaves room for suspending habeas corpus in times of rebellion or invasion.