Help restore habeas corpus
Send a message to Congress here - we’re very close on this one, and just need to hammer some Republican politicians with just how much due process matters to those in their constituencies.
If you have Republican reps in either house of Congress, a follow-up phone call to their office would be especially helpful. (Just tell whoever answers the phone that you want your rep to support the Leahy-Specter bill to restore habeas corpus.) But even if you can only use the online form to apply pressure, please do.
You were told this law would only apply to non-citizens. You were told a deal was being struck to make the bill less oppressive. Congress lied on both counts. The deal they struck actually made the law worse.
You were informed by the mainstream media that you could trust Senator McCain to protect you because he had once been tortured in Vietnam, but Senator McCain did not protect you. He betrayed you. He agreed to make this law worse, not better.
The final version of this law actually repeals the entire Bill of Rights for everyone; citizens and non-citizens alike. The only right you still retain is the protection against being forced to quarter troops in your home.
The true effect of this law is so bad that it seems unbelievable. Some, therefore, may respond with apathy. Politicians count on this. But can your children count on you to leave them the same rights you’ve enjoyed?
We agree with Richard Epstein, “Truth must count. Innocence must matter.” We need due process to learn the truth, punish only the guilty, and protect the innocent.
Filed under: Life
The text of S.3930 doesn’t seem, to me, to do what they claim it does.
The military commissions it authorizes are applied to aliens only. Perhaps the PSH attack was brought on by reading “Sec. 950v. Crimes triable by military commissions“, and not noticing that commissions are only authorised for the trial of unlawful combatant aliens:
“Sec. 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by military commission under this chapter.”
There’s nothing here for anyone to worry about, and the DownsizeDC people are either terrible at reading law, or deliberately trying to deceive people into panic.
(I say “anyone”, not just “citizens”, because this sure seems to clarify and even restrict the actions of the military and detainment vis-a-vis even actual alien unlawful combatants.)
That’s not how I - or all these law professors and other experts - read it.
Sigivald, it just struck me that my previous comment was incomplete and inadequate. But I’m far too lazy to rectify that now, from my Blackberry. Later…and sorry.
Those professors say “Nevertheless, in October 2006, Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act (“MCA”) eliminating habeas corpus for certain aliens held by the United States as “enemy combatants.”, which I’ll grant it seems to do - but that wasn’t what I was objecting to DownsizeDC claiming.
They (DDC) said “The final version of this law actually repeals the entire Bill of Rights for everyone; citizens and non-citizens alike. The only right you still retain is the protection against being forced to quarter troops in your home.”, and I don’t see it in the text; Epstein and his co-signatories are pointedly not claiming that either, in my admittedly rapid reading of their statement.
My argument is not that the MCA is without flaws or dangers, or that it does not remove traditional habeas protection from alien unlawful combatants - just that DownsizeDC grossly misrepresents it.
(I am not nearly as concerned about the danger to habeas involved in the MCA as Epstein is, but at least it’s a danger that is manifestly present in the bill, and that a rational person (like Epstein) can present an argument for being a real and present danger. We might disagree on the outcome of the calculus, but we can all agree it’s there, without hyperbole.
Not so with the DDC rhetoric about “repealing almost the entire bill of rights”.)