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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (72112)	6/14/2008 9:25:23 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542008

<<<Habeas Corpus was designed for civilian citizens. It was not designed for enemy fighters in a war. There's a big square-peg factor here that can't be brushed away so easily.>>> That only holds if you and all those on the right insist that rights must also be spelled out in the negative. If your side wins on this, this turns our legal system upside down. Responding to questions from Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended. “There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away,” Gonzales said. Gonzales’s remark left Specter, the committee’s ranking Republican, stammering. “Wait a minute,” Specter interjected. “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?” Gonzales continued, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.” You be the judge.

To: Lane3 who wrote (72112)	6/14/2008 9:42:43 AM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542008

Habeas Corpus was designed for civilian citizens. It was not designed for enemy fighters in a war. Are we at war? Against whom, terror? The war framing falls apart rather quickly under logical examination.

To: Lane3 who wrote (72112)	6/14/2008 4:28:13 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542008

>>Habeas Corpus was designed for civilian citizens. It was not designed for enemy fighters in a war. There's a big square-peg factor here that can't be brushed away so easily.<< Karen - I'll stand by my statement. The legal status of people who we claim to be "enemy combatants", who have been detained in an undeclared war, is pretty murky. The Bush Administration invented that phrase specifically to ensure that such people would not be covered by the Geneva Conventions. But in any system of justice worthy of the name, Habeas Corpus would have to be considered a fundamental principle. It is simply not morally right to grab people who happen to be in a particular location, looking a particular way, presume they are guilty, throw them into a prison camp halfway around the world, and deny them the right to know what they are accused of, to be able to present exculpatory evidence, or to have any kind of hearing to even establish a factual basis for their detention. Without Habeas Corpus, that's what you get. The people detained at Guantanamo are not US citizens. But that doesn't mean they have no basic legal rights. Remember that while some of them undoubtedly are "enemy fighters", many of them are just innocents who have been detained by mistake. - Allen