Safeguarding Liberty and Justice for All

[flashl]

The customary July Fourth column is an essay celebrating our tradition of liberty.

But this Fourth, let’s tackle a harder issue: How much do we actually value that tradition?

...

One of the great legacies of English common law, the writ of habeas corpus developed as a check on the monarchical habit of arbitrarily imprisoning opponents of the crown. By the time of the American Revolution, habeas was considered so essential to individual liberty that it was written into the main body of the Constitution, and not appended afterward as was the Bill of Rights.

“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,” the Constitution declares.

...

“Everybody is in favor of protecting our rights when it applies to us,” notes US Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and himself a former prosecutor. “But when it is suspected terrorists, we don’t want to protect their rights - even though maybe we have the wrong person.”

Common Dreams

[midnight]

1. For All. Not just those folks we like.

[DangerDave921]

2. It's a thorny issue

It's not as simple as you make it. The people in question are: a) foreign individuals; b) captured in a foreign land: c) during a time of war; and d) not residing in the United States.

Never in our 200+ year history has habeus corpus been seen as a right belonging to such individuals. We certainly didn't extend such rights to foreign POW's in any other war.

So I have to admit I am very torn on this issue. Of course the US cannot hold people indefinitely, but I don't think they have constitutional rights to challenge their detention in US civilian courts. Military tribunals are the customary way of dealing with this situation.