a GRAM OF TRUTH

Habeas Corpus

The Senate Judiciary Committee, by a vote of 11-8, passed a bill that would allow terrorism suspects access to federal courts to challenge their imprisonment at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba through a writ of habeas corpus, considered by many to be the cornerstone of the U.S. judicial system. The bill is expected to hit the Senate floor later this month.

Why is this such big news? Well, because in October of 2006, Congress and President Bush passed the Military Commissions Act (MCA), eliminating Habeas Corpus for illegal aliens and even those legal residents who are accused of being “enemy combatants”; and for those who are detained by the federal government, giving the President the power to decide, without review by Congress or the Courts, just who is declared an “enemy combatant”.

A formal document written and signed by hundreds of legal scholars, lawyers and former judges wrote that “the fundamental role of Habeas Corpus in ensuring that America is a government of laws and not of men”. Eight distinguished former federal judges stated the case for habeas:

“With passage of the MCA and the abolition of habeas rights for detainees, the United States now stands as a country that approves the continued abuse of detainees, uses secret overseas prisons, and allows endless detention.

The policies put in place by the new law contradict the basic values of fairness and respect for the law to which Americans subscribe. They undermine our standing and respect in the world,
hurting our quest for hearts and minds and our credibility with allies in the fight against international terrorism.”

The writ of Habeas Corpus is your sole right to know why the government wants to imprison you. It gives you the right to challenge your imprisonment in court in front of a neutral judge. Our Founding Fathers must have believed the principle so important they wrote it into the body of the US Constitution, in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2. It states: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public safety may require it.”

Habeas Corpus has been upheld ever since the forming of our great country.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”.

Thomas Jefferson called Habeas Corpus one of the “essential principles of our government,” and extolled habeas for “securing every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume.”

Logic and reason tells me that the Constitution was established to protect the civil liberties of the American people, and they did so with the intent to ensure that these hallowed principles would not be abused and tampered with by the same people who swore an oath to protect and uphold them.

Logic and reason also tells me that when a political leader lies and gets caught, and then tells another lie when he or she tries to weasel their way out of the first lie, then that person a) cannot be trusted to tell the truth, and should, therefore, resign from public office; and b) if they lied before a Justice Committee or in a Court of Law they should be impeached for perjury; and c) if their lies have caused the unnecessary deaths of thousands of innocent people, they should be impeached and imprisoned.

Logic and reason tells me that the justification for attacking Iraq and waging war against said country have been proven to be a lie; and WE should declare the war illegal; thus, bringing the troops back home.

Logic and reason tells me that, if the majority of the Iraqi people want us to leave, then WE should leave; and WE should pay back the huge debt we owe them for destroying their infrastructure, and for displacing thousands of Iraqi families, and for creating below subsistence living conditions, and fomenting a platform for a bloody civil war.

Logic and reason tells me that WE can never pay back ALL the families for the loss of their loved ones and for their grief.

Logic and reason tells me that President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, and the entire Presidential Cabinet have been proven as incompetent, untrustworthy, callous and malicious and not fit to serve in office any longer and should be held accountable for “high crimes and misdemeanors”.

Logic and reason tells me that ordinary people will unite their voices and demand that justice be served against the real criminals, not the ones who have been accused and detained for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or for wearing the wrong garb and for having darker skin, or for practicing another religion.

Logic and reason tells me that the People of America will demand all three branches of government be held accountable for wrongful acts and poliltical hoodwinking.

Logic and reason tells me that the people will demand Congress to restore Habeas Corpus for the simple reason that the United States Supreme Court asserted that habeas “is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against lawless state action.” It is time for the politicians to give back what is not theirs to take.

In the end, Logic and Reason is what serves us best when all other systems have failed.