Still No Habeas Corpus

[Dubh Aingeal]

Yesterday a vote in the US Senate fell four votes short of what was needed to restore habeas corpus — the fundamental right of individuls to challenge government detention. Here is the record of the vote on the Cloture Motion to restore Habeas Corpus. Article 4 of the US Constitution states that habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless in cases of rebellion and invasion when the public safety may require it.

[Msterbeau]

Assholes.

[phee]

*shakes head*

[Der Nister]

What a surprise.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Functionally neither of these bills (this specific one, and the one before it that it was meant to "overturn") do much. The first one didn't really "suspend" or "do away with" habeas corpus and as such this follow-up bill regardless of the vote wouldn't really do much either in the long term other than the usual shift toward consolidation of power.

Since U.S. law doesn't overrule international law, and this bill for the most part targets non-U.S. citizens it cant really overturn >international

There is a lot of confusion (intentionally i think) about how this actually effects U.S. citizens. In a very broad sense, the wording of the thing doesn't specifically remove habeas corpus and as such, will take yet more political wrangling to sort out in the future.

Once they detain you , they can only hold you for so long without making specific public charges against you or they have to let you go UNLESS its "...in cases of rebellion or invasion - it may be in the public interest."

If its deemed "invasion" that can open a huge can of worms as to what that actually means. Part of Habeus Corpus is that the government DOES have the right to say X person(s) can be held without charges being leveled. Kinda scary but its long been a constitutional fact. So even if the Military Commissions Act (the bad guy in this story) is taken to be as negative and civil rights crushing as its harshest critics interpret, its not really "changing" the constitution, but explaining it in more detail than is in the text. (not to say thats a GOOD thing)

The massive political majority to actually change the constitution would be very difficult to muster. All that first bill did was say "its ok to suspend habeas corpus in cases of suspected terrorism." the assumption there being that its "in a time of war, and in the public interest". But it doesn't remove habeas corpus from the constitution. They were careful to not have it drafted that way, its just an oversimplification on many peoples part to say that it "removes habeus corpus" (i looked it up on Wikipedia and they too, lazily oversimplify it as such)

Habeus Corpus has long been subject to interpretation and long been able to be "removed" or "suspended" specifically stated in the constitution during "Rebellion or Invasion". Neither what exactly "rebellion" nor "invasion" actually mean is fully spelled out , fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it.

Mainly im aware of this being a civil war buff but also a constitutional law hobbyist. Lincoln "suspended" habeas corpus during the Civil War and later Grant suspended it while trying to put down a very violent uprising lead by the Klu Klux Klan. Both situations were constitutionally questionable, but both did have decent constitutional arguments. Same goes for this set of bills.

[know_buddy_kares]

I'd like to add that the only ones that voted against bringing habeas corpus back were republicans...

only 4 voted to bring it back, the rest were democrats.

And people wonder why I have no respect for a republican representative...

[Scary Guy]