Why Do Bush & Cheney Hate Habeas Corpus?

1. Order Nixing Habeas Rights Goes Into Effect

“The D.C. Circuit Court on Wednesday, after pondering the issue for more than two months, on Wednesday refused to delay any longer putting into effect its decision that Guantanamo Bay detainees have lost all rights to pursue habeas challenges to their prolonged imprisonment. In a brief order, the panel that ruled against the detainees on Feb. 20 formally denied a request filed in April by detainees’ lawyers not to issue the mandate and to hold the cases on its docket for several more months.”

The Justice Department appears likely to act quickly to get 12 District Court judges in Washington to dismiss habeas challenges by scores of detainees, and also to wipe out so-called “protective orders” that assure the detainees’ lawyers access to their clients at Guantanamo and access to information the military may use to justify continuing to hold them.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/20/order-nixing-habeas-rights-goes-into-effect


2. Skelton And Conyers Introduce Major New Habeas Reform Legislation

Last month, the House Armed Services Committee “dealt a blow to the human-rights community” by failing to include a provision restoring habeas corpus rights in the 2008 defense authorization bill. At the time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the House would address habeas reform in a stand-alone bill.

Today, House chairmen Ike Skelton (D-MS) of the Armed Services Committee and John Conyers (D-MI) of the Judiciary Committee announced legislation that would finally restore habeas corpus rights to U.S. detainees being imprisoned indefinitely without trial. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed habeas legislation earlier this month.

In a statement, Skelton said the legislation takes aim at the “seriously flawed” provision in the Military Commissions Act that stripped detainees of their habeas rights. The support of Skelton, considered a leading moderate in the House, suggests the bill will have broad-based support. Conyers added:

Habeas Corpus is one of the fundamental touchstones of our constitutional democracy. We cannot preach freedom abroad if we are not willing to give prisoners the ability to establish their innocence; and, we cannot advance the cause of fighting terrorism at home if our government takes constitutionally dubious short cuts.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/22/habeas-reform/


3. Twenty-Two Democratic Senators Support Restoring Habeas Corpus -- Where's the Rest?

Here's the list of Democratic Senators who need to hear from you. Even if they intend to vote for the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 when it comes to the Senate floor next month, they need to be pushed further to stand up and cosponsor this important component in taking back our country:

Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Thomas Carper (D-DE)
Robert Casey (D-PA)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
James Webb (D-VA)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)

http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/


4. Petition to Restore Habeas Corpus

Last September, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) which restricted habeas corpus rights, allowing the government to continue holding prisoners at Guantanamo indefinitely with no access to a fair hearing in court. Indefinite imprisonment without a fair trial or hearing is unconstitutional and un-American.

We urge you to sign the Petition to Restore Habeas Corpus.

http://ga1.org/campaign/petition_to_restore_habeas_corpus_2007


5. Send a Postcard from History featuring Habeas Corpus!

Greetings from Habeas Corpus and me!

Today Habeas faces a new and unprecedented assault. When the 109th Congress passed and the president signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, they eliminated habeas rights for some people, and signed away a centuries-old principle that remains a hallmark of American values.

Habeas has been looking out for us for centuries. Now he needs us to look out for him. That’s why I thought you’d want to get involved in the Find Habeas campaign. Learn more and get started today. Check out www.findhabeas.com

http://action.aclu.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=4021

... few television news reporters have bothered to mention that the Military Commissions Act has changed the U.S. justice system and our approach to human rights. As Olbermann said of the new law on his October 17 Countdown program, the new act "does away with habeas corpus, the right of suspected terrorists or anybody else to know why they have been imprisoned."

Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Constitutional Law Professor, was Olbermann's guest. Olbermann asked him, "Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?"

Turley responded,

"It does. And it's a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president...People have no idea how significant this is. What, really a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15379.htm

:kick:

June 26, 2007

About 4,000 people rallied in Washington today to advocate the restoration of habeas corpus and other constitutional rights undermined by the Bush administration, according to estimates from the ACLU.

Organizers say they are delivering about 200,000 petition signatures to Congress that demand immediate action to "restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, end torture and rendition and restore our constitutional rights." This is not a one-day affair, either. The rally is designed to continue online until Congress acts. A coalition of over 50 organizations, led by the ACLU and Amnesty International, is recruiting supporters through an official website; Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy started a website asking people to pressure his Senate colleagues into supporting the habeas bill; and MoveOn has launched a new campaign to end torture, pass habeas legislation and "Restore the Rule of Law." MoveOn organizer Nita Chaudhary is leading the important effort, which includes support from retired Generals Robert Gard and John Johns, who spoke out in favor of closing Guantanamo this week.

This push comes at a critical time. The Senate will consider legislation on defense issues and habeas corpus when it returns from recess in July. Several Democratic presidential candidates now raise these issues on the trail. Dodd and Edwards challenge Bush's entire approach to the Global War on Terror, while Obama has been singling out habeas corpus in his stump speech for months (which the AP recently noticed). And this week the Bush administration publicly debated when to close Guantanamo -- not if.

So even the people who created Gitmo won't defend it.

In fact, the only people left supporting Bush's detainee policy offer unintelligible slogans, like Mitt Romney's promise to "double" Gitmo, or embarrassing falsehoods, such as James Taranto's Wall Street Journal column today, which claims that the executive branch "protects our freedom" by "keeping" people "out of our justice system." Suspending habeas corpus and denying people their right to challenge government detention actually limits "freedom," of course, but with no logical defense of Gitmo available, Mr. Taranto just throws around inflammatory words. The same column attacks Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for trying to "endanger the lives of American civilians." Why? Because Powell's proposal to close Gitmo supports "constitutional protections" for individuals in U.S. custody.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-melber/gitmo-diehards-vs-habeas_b_53861.html

By Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium

June 27, 2007

When the Military Commissions Act passed Congress last September, it demolished the writ of habeas corpus for enemy detainees, making it possible for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and other military facilities to be held indefinitely and with no access to the courts to challenge the circumstances of their imprisonment. It didn't end habeas in a straightforward, easily reversible way, however. It did so by inference — first, by denying the writ to "unlawful enemy combatants," and then by defining that term so broadly that it could, in some cases, extend to American citizens. A controversial provision in the law defines an enemy combatant as anybody "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." (It was through this legal rationale that the government held, tortured, and denied trial to Jose Padilla, an American citizen arrested in Chicago in 2002 for engaging in terrorist activities.)

On Tuesday, Democrats pressed on their investigation into the legal implications of the end run around habeas and how to resurrect it. So far Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties, has sponsored two pieces of legislation with that aim: the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act and the Restoring the Constitution Act. If passed, the former would restore the right of federal courts to officially decide the legitimacy of a detainee's enemy combatant status. The latter would limit that status to "those who directly participate in hostilities against the U.S. or who aided in the September 11th attacks." It would also forbid the use of evidence gathered by coercion, which is currently admissible, and would make torture and the denial of habeas punishable under the War Crimes Act.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/06/detainee_rights_beutler.html

Who's afraid of habeas corpus?
By JC Garrett

Jun 28, 2007, 01:07

The purported security concerns decried by Bush are nothing but an anemically thin smokescreen designed entirely to prevent the disclosure of the widespread use of torture sanctioned at the highest levels of the government. The only things habeas proceedings endanger are the continued use of torture on detainees, and the continued freedom of many administration officials, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Don Rumsfeld.

So who's afraid of habeas corpus?

The depraved administration officials at the highest levels of the American government who may very well soon find themselves on trial for war crimes. And they damn well ought to be afraid.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2131.shtml

This repeat offense features Dubya fantasizing openly about being a dictator.

1. It would be a heck of a lot easier to be a dictator than work in a democracy. (1996 - referenced in J.H. Hatfield's "Fortunate Son", when Dubya was governor of Texas - date unknown)

2. You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier. (Jul. 1, 1998)

3. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator. (shortly after his contentious victory in the Supreme Court that resulted in his becoming president - Dec. 18, 2000)

4. A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. (Jul. 26, 2001)

5. It's not a dictatorship in Washington, but I tried to make it one in that instance. We are beginning to see some success in opening up federal coffers for faith-based programs. (Jan. 15, 2004)

http://www.dubyaspeak.com/repeatoffender.phtml?offense=dictator

:)

That works too.



:hi:

elimination of habeus corpus is the legal equivolent of beheading. In Iraq, beheading is a symbol of total domination and commitment on the part of captors. They don't need to do it, obviously, to kill their victims, but doing it in this manner sends a message and deprives the prisoner of his humanity and dignity. Same thing with removing habeus corpus...not necessary....removes humanity and dignity...is a symbol of total control and domination.

Bush and Cheney don't like them foreign people unless they are in some sort of subservient capacity. ;-)

Unfortunately, plenty of Americans share that belief.

Only Americans have rights, according to this philosophy.

These are the people that "hate America."

remember how they tried to disenfranchise minorities in past elections

Democrats and civil libertarians have been understandably livid over the administration’s demolition of the writ of habeas corpus. But remedying the problem isn’t quite as simple as it should be.

For starters, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), signed by President Bush last October, didn’t end habeas in a straightforward, easily reversible way. It ended habeas by inference—first, by denying the writ to “unlawful enemy combatants,” and then by defining that term broadly enough that it could, in some cases, include American citizens. Today, an enemy combatant is anybody “engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.”

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3248/can_habeas_corpus_be_restored/