Debates about Constitutionality become legalistic because the Constitution is a legal document. It's basically a contract that represents the last time Americans ever managed to (kinda) agree on anything.
You also have to keep in mind that debates about Constitutionality arise over politically unpopular topics. It's a way for people with minority viewpoints to say: "well, whether you think this is good or bad, it is inconsistent with this larger scheme we all agreed to."
If you held a vote and asked people whether they thought people accused of terrorism, especially abroad, should have rights, you'd lose. I remember in college being the lone dissenting voice in a discussion of the merits of turning the entire Middle East into a glass parking lot. Ordinary Americans believe very deeply in the sovereign right of the American government to kill foreigners who do anything contrary to American interests.
Hence the resort to legalism. You can't convince Americans that it's good for suspected terrorists to be given trials, etc, so the best you can hope to do is convince them that they, collectively, bargained away the ability to hold suspected terrorists without trial.
There are two problems with this analysis. The first is that the Constitution is not a "contract" with which Americans "collectively bargained away" anything, because modern Americans were not alive at the alleged time of bargaining away things, and being alive is a prerequisite for making a contract. To believe in constitutionalism is essentially to not believe in governance by the consent of the governed.
The other problem is that even if it was a contract, we seem to ignore it, because we pass the laws described in the article. So it's not a very effective system.
I'm using "contract" in a somewhat figurative sense here. Obviously the Constitution isn't an ordinary contract, but it has many of the characteristics of one. Also, I think it's a modern conceit that one cannot be bound by obligations agreed to before one was born. Society and government are continuous, and we "consent" to the governing rules by being born and choosing to remain a part of a particular society governed by a particular government.
As for the laws described in the article--they are not the product of Congress "ignoring the Constitution." The appearance of "ignoring the Constitution" is itself the product of certain civil libertarians believing the Constitution says more than it does, or focusing on what they wished the Constitution said rather than what it does say.
You also have to keep in mind that debates about Constitutionality arise over politically unpopular topics. It's a way for people with minority viewpoints to say: "well, whether you think this is good or bad, it is inconsistent with this larger scheme we all agreed to."
If you held a vote and asked people whether they thought people accused of terrorism, especially abroad, should have rights, you'd lose. I remember in college being the lone dissenting voice in a discussion of the merits of turning the entire Middle East into a glass parking lot. Ordinary Americans believe very deeply in the sovereign right of the American government to kill foreigners who do anything contrary to American interests.
Hence the resort to legalism. You can't convince Americans that it's good for suspected terrorists to be given trials, etc, so the best you can hope to do is convince them that they, collectively, bargained away the ability to hold suspected terrorists without trial.