connecticut senator to introduce bill to restore writ of habeas corpus

[heyabbott]

We're supposed to be better than them. Period.

I agree but you know what that makes us?
Cultural Bigots.
Racists.
Elitists.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

I pride myself on being politically incorrect, FB!

Agree and agree, btw. This administration shouldn't be trusted with broad powers.

Political correctness in this case is still going to mean at least a half dozen democrats (if not more) who voted for the MCA are going to have to now change their position. The MCA didn't just squeek by. It was passed by an overwhelming majority.

I thought it was Clinton's "broad" powers that couldn't be trusted.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

I pride myself on being politically incorrect, FB!

Agree and agree, btw. This administration shouldn't be trusted with broad powers.

Political correctness in this case is still going to mean at least a half dozen democrats (if not more) who voted for the MCA are going to have to now change their position. The MCA didn't just squeek by. It was passed by an overwhelming majority.

I thought it was Clinton's "broad" powers that couldn't be trusted.

Actually, they're one of the most consistent things about the man.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Ragu --

honest question. If the people affected in this bill never had habeas corpus rights, why did we need a law to suspend them?

I'm admittedly confused.

Somehow missed this until just now... We didn't need a law. It was originally a presidential order from 2001--not an act of Congress--that determined the status of non-citizen detainees who were deemed unlawful combatants, not an act of congress. And that order basically said what the MCA says... that enemy combatants could be detained indefinitely, without charges being brought, without a court hearing and without representation. That kind of broad power being dictated by one man makes me uneasy, but this is all new ground. The U.S. has never had reason to publicly hold foreigners (who are not protected by the U.S. Constitution) the way it has during the war on terror.

I personally think we botched it--it was Ben Franklin who said, "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." But that's not a legal determination, just my sense of how things should be.

The only reason the MCA came before Congress was the Supreme Court case earlier this year that challenged the military tribunals. After that, Bush decided to get explicit congressional authorization to use military tribunals. Basically he got Congress to rubber stamp what he was already doing to try to bolster his position. And of course the sheep in the Senate, including a dozen democrats, were all too happy to oblige.

But it's never been clear if the President could do what we are doing in Guantanamo Bay or if the Congress can, or what specifically there is--aside from possibly the Geneva Convention--that protects the rights of the detainees. The only thing that is clear is that a detainee from somewhere else has not had his habeas corpus rights "suspended" as you put it, because he never had those rights to begin with. He's not a U.S. citizen. And the U.S. constitution only applies to U.S. citizens.

 

[JR]

Most reasonable people would agree that habeas corpus is a fundamental tenet of justice. Just because the people in question aren't U.S citizens doesn't make it morally or legally right to deny them these rights.

The U.S. Constitution "stole" the concept from English Common Law because they realised its universality. The creators of the Constitution didn't invent it.

As a non U.S. citizen, I'd be slightly alarmed travelling to the United States if one of my fundamental rights--as a person--could be overturned by arbitrary measures.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

And the MCA did something even more indecent.
It retroactively immunized the administration from whatever laws it had broken pre-Hamdan, much as the wiretapping scam that's headed down the pike does.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Most reasonable people would agree that habeas corpus is a fundamental tenet of justice. Just because the people in question aren't U.S citizens doesn't make it morally or legally right to deny them these rights.

The U.S. Constitution "stole" the concept from English Common Law because they realised its universality. The creators of the Constitution didn't invent it.

As a non U.S. citizen, I'd be slightly alarmed travelling to the United States if one of my fundamental rights--as a person--could be overturned by arbitrary measures.

This would be a convincing argument if we were plucking tourists from the street and they were never heard from again. But it's a straw man argument. Guantanamo Bay is filled with former Taleban fighters, not Canadian citizens (even though I've written my Congressperson more than once asking her to try to broaden who it's applied to). The original order, and the MCA, do throw around broad powers in a way that should make people uncomfortable, but they were designed to deal with avowed enemies of the U.S. It's a question we had to deal with, one way or the other. I wish we had a more transparent process than the one we settled on, but to me this isn't an all or nothing proposition, as in either we throw away the key and submit them to torture every day or afford them the rights of a U.S. citizens.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Most reasonable people would agree that habeas corpus is a fundamental tenet of justice. Just because the people in question aren't U.S citizens doesn't make it morally or legally right to deny them these rights.

The U.S. Constitution "stole" the concept from English Common Law because they realised its universality. The creators of the Constitution didn't invent it.

As a non U.S. citizen, I'd be slightly alarmed travelling to the United States if one of my fundamental rights--as a person--could be overturned by arbitrary measures.

This would be a convincing argument if we were plucking tourists from the street and they were never heard from again. But it's a straw man argument. Guantanamo Bay is filled with former Taleban fighters, not Canadian citizens (even though I've written my Congressperson more than once asking her to try to broaden who it's applied to). The original order, and the MCA, do throw around broad powers in a way that should make people uncomfortable, but they were designed to deal with avowed enemies of the U.S. It's a question we had to deal with, one way or the other. I wish we had a more transparent process than the one we settled on, but to me this isn't an all or nothing proposition, as in either we throw away the key and submit them to torture every day or afford them the rights of a U.S. citizens.

Without transparency, or oversight, or any kind of check on the executive, it is every bit an all-or-nothing proposition. And there is more than enough evidence on the record to argue that a lot of the people we've detained at Gitmo and the black sites elsewhere are people who were "swept up off the street" and sold by the local warlords, or to settle personal and/or political vendettas. Of course, given the powers of the MCA, there's no way for any of them to prove that.
And, anyway, there is stuff the United States of American does not do because we put an awful lot of stuff in writing that says we won't.

 

[JR]

Ragu, I don't believe there is proof that every prisoner at Guantanamo Bay is either a Taliban or someone who's involved in hostilities against the U.S.

I don't see why you should heap another injustice i.e suspension of habeas corpus on top of another i.e. arbitrary confinement.

Habeas corpus is one of the defining characteristics of a civilized society.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Most reasonable people would agree that habeas corpus is a fundamental tenet of justice. Just because the people in question aren't U.S citizens doesn't make it morally or legally right to deny them these rights.

The U.S. Constitution "stole" the concept from English Common Law because they realised its universality. The creators of the Constitution didn't invent it.

As a non U.S. citizen, I'd be slightly alarmed travelling to the United States if one of my fundamental rights--as a person--could be overturned by arbitrary measures.

This would be a convincing argument if we were plucking tourists from the street and they were never heard from again. But it's a straw man argument. Guantanamo Bay is filled with former Taleban fighters, not Canadian citizens (even though I've written my Congressperson more than once asking her to try to broaden who it's applied to). The original order, and the MCA, do throw around broad powers in a way that should make people uncomfortable, but they were designed to deal with avowed enemies of the U.S. It's a question we had to deal with, one way or the other. I wish we had a more transparent process than the one we settled on, but to me this isn't an all or nothing proposition, as in either we throw away the key and submit them to torture every day or afford them the rights of a U.S. citizens.

Without transparency, or oversight, or any kind of check on the executive, it is every bit an all-or-nothing proposition. And there is more than enough evidence on the record to argue that a lot of the people we've detained at Gitmo and the black sites elsewhere are people who were "swept up off the street" and sold by the local warlords, or to settle personal and/or political vendettas. Of course, given the powers of the MCA, there's no way for any of them to prove that.
And, anyway, there is stuff the United States of American does not do because we put an awful lot of stuff in writing that says we won't.

You're trying to twist my words... to agree with me? When I said it isn't an all or nothing proposition for me, I was saying that I wish we had something in between what we have (nothing; a shroud of secrecy) and what the ACLU would like (all; i.e. -- were the detainees read their Miranda rights?). I agree with you about the MCA. It smacks of something the cold war Kremlin would have passed. That said, I'll reiterate for J.R.'s benefit that we haven't started rounding up the Canadian tourists... yet.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Ragu, I don't believe there is proof that every prisoner at Guantanamo Bay is either a Taliban or someone who's involved in hostilities against the U.S.

I don't see why you should heap another injustice i.e suspension of habeas corpus on top of another i.e. arbitrary confinement.

Habeas corpus is one of the defining characteristics of a civilized society.

Of course there is no proof. And we set up a system where that proof couldn't come forward, even if there was any. And yes, that's troubling. There's also no proof that Bush--and it would be ridiculous to suggest it--has started rounding up his political enemies and sending them to Gitmo. Habeas Corpus might be one of the defining characteristics of a civilized society, but you can say that our ideas about civilized societies were thrown for a loop in 2001. I don't like what we're doing in the name of the war on terror... I can also think of a lot more troubling things in the world.

 

[JR]

Ragu, actually the U.S. has rounded up at least one innocent Canadian.

Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian birth, travelling back to Canada through New York was detained by U.S. immigration and sent back to Syria in accordance with the extraordinary rendition policy.

Now, granted, this was done on rather suspect information given by the RCMP but the fact still remains, he was totally innocent but was held in a Syrian prison and tortured for about a year.

Both the Canadian and U.S. governments are equally culpable in this but once you deny someone habeas corpus, you can deny everyone the right.