Not a Philadelphia lawyer's Trick

Daily Kos notes that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (S. 185) , 11-8. Specter, perhaps embarrassed by his role when the Military Commission's Act stripped us of that fundamental right, was the sole Republican supporting the legislation. The bill could go to the full floor at any time. As Crooks and Liars explains: "Keith Olbermann brings back George Washington University Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley to talk about the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on the Restoration of Habeas Corpus Act today."

Turley explains the importance of habeas corpus:

First of all, habeas corpus is sometimes treated like some trick by a Philadelphia lawyer. It is actually the foundation for all other rights. When the government throws you into a dungeon for what you say or who you pray to, it's habeas corpus that's the right that allows you to see the enforcement of the other rights. So without habeas corpus, the rest of it is just aspirational and meaningless.

The danger when you walk away from these values, these rights that define us have been proven by this president. The greatest irony of the Bush Administration is that his legacy will be to show the dangers of walking away from those rights that define us. We’re very much alone today. He can’t go to Canada without people protesting, Miss America can’t even go to Mexico without being booed. We’re viewed as a rogue nation and it is a dangerous world to live in when you’re alone. In Italy, they're prosecuting in abstentia our own agents. This doesn't make us safer.... It's very interesting that the lesson this president may leave for his successors is that whether you are inclined to walk away from those core rights or not, that is what puts us in the greatest danger.

Transcript available at Daily Kos.

Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars also discusses the possible restoration of Habeas Corpus by Congress in Bring Back Habeas Corpus.

This is a significant step in restoring some of the constitutional rights that have been stripped by the ruling junta in the White House. When the Military Commissions Act was first passed, Senator Feingold called it "a stain on our Nation's History." See So bye, bye Miss American Pie. Hopefully, this will be the stain remover.

As Shaun Mullen, writing at the Moderate Voice aptly put it, Habeas Corpus: Will Dems Wake From the Dead? :

For too many Americans, the suspension of certain civil liberties after the 9/11 attacks has been an abstraction, something that applies only to people with funny headgear and fanatical beliefs who are incarcerated in the Rumsfeld Gulag. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that habeas corpus does not apply to non-U.S. citizens, who include the vast majority of so-called enemy combatants.

Yet here is an example of the reality behind the words. McClatchy's Washington Bureau reports, in Human rights groups say there are over 39 'ghost detainees':

At least 39 people from a half-dozen countries have been held in secret U.S. detention centers worldwide for three or more years, and their fates remain unknown, six human-rights groups say in a report to be released Thursday.

* * * *

In five instances, the report says, U.S. authorities detained the wives or young children of suspects held in secret prisons.

I remember Argentina's "The Disappeared" when its military junta (1976 - 1983) ran a secret detention program where 300,000 of its citizens "disappeared" during the Dirty War. See, e.g., Argentina's "disappeared". Whenever I consider the elimination of habeas and how our government is acting today, I think about the "Disappeared" and feel that we have become what we once despised. We need to restore habeas corpus to prevent further abuses by our country and restore our dignity.

Tags: Civil Liberties, Law, Commentary, Olbermann, Video, Politics, habeas corpus