The Senate agrees to Imprisonment without Charges

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_051112_the_senate_agrees_to.htm

 

 

 

 

The Senate agrees to Imprisonment without Charges

 

by Mike Whitney

 

 

http://www.opednews.com

 

How can the Senate vote to ban habeas corpus?!?

 

It makes no sense at all. It's like voting for an end to freedom. And,

yet, this is exactly what happened on Friday, November 11, when the

Senate passed the (Lindsay) Graham amendment which overturns an

earlier Supreme Court ruling (Rasul vs. Bush) allowing Guantanamo

detainees to challenge their imprisonment in federal court. By a 49 to

42 margin the Senate approved the measure which effectively deprives

them of the right to know why they are being held or of any legal

means to defend themselves.

 

None of the Guantanamo inmates have ever been charged with a crime.

The Senate vote ensures that they never will.

 

The action goes beyond a simple dispute with the high court's decision

to honor the rights of so called " enemy combatants " . The vote denies

the prisoners any civil liberties provided under the Bill of Rights,

the Geneva Conventions or any other of the human rights treaties to

which the US is a signatory. It is a blatant attempt to rescind the

principle that men are entitled to equal treatment under the law or

that they are innocent until proven guilty. From this point on,

everyone who has been caught up in Bush's " war on terror " dragnet will

be presumed guilty.

 

Habeas corpus is the cornerstone of American jurisprudence dating back

800 years in British Law. It allows a detained person to appear before

a judge to determine the legitimacy of his imprisonment, and it forces

the state to charge that person with a crime if it intends to continue

holding him. It is the most fundamental of all human rights, and

certainly the most important. Without the protection of habeas the

state is free to disregard the law and jail anyone it pleases. The

denial of habeas is the beginning of tyranny.

 

Freedom does not exist in a vacuum; it can only thrive where there are

restrictions to state power. Civil liberties are the fire-wall which

protects the citizen from the threat of government abuse. Habeas

corpus is the foundation upon which the entire scaffolding of civil

liberties is erected. It is the primary shield against the violence of

the state.

 

Senator Lindsay Graham knows all of this; after all he's an attorney.

And, yet, he has taken this extraordinary step to revoke The Great

Writ of Liberty (habeas corpus) to confer absolute authority on the

president.

 

Why?

 

Where is the evidence that eviscerating basic liberties improves our

chances of winning the war on terror?

 

In case after case, the Bush administration has taken the position

that the president is above the law and can imprison " terror suspects "

according to his own discretion. On September 9, 2005 the

administration won a crucial battle when the 3 judge panel of the 4th

Circuit Court of Appeals voted unanimously that Bush could continue to

imprison an American citizen, Jose Padilla, without charging him with

a crime. The court said that the Joint Resolution issued by Congress

following 9-11 authorized the President to use " all appropriate force "

in fighting the war on terror. This, they concurred, allows the

president to ignore the Bill of Rights and act on his own judgment.

 

Once again, the target of Bush's assault on Padilla was habeas corpus,

the ideological nerve-center of American jurisprudence

 

Consider the words of Alexander Hamilton who said, the writ of habeas

corpus protects against " the practice of arbitrary imprisonment . . .

the favorite and most formidable instrument of tyranny. "

 

Or, this from Justice Antonin Scalia:

 

" The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of

separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the

will of the Executive. "

 

The Bush administration, under the cover of the war on terror, is

marching inexorably towards a totalitarian state. Since Sept 11 they

have taken steps to reconfigure the legal landscape and promote their

vision of the supreme presidency. Their colleagues in the Congress and

the judiciary have supported their efforts to bolster executive power

while putting the president beyond the range of accountability. All

the while, they have calculatingly zeroed in on the essential human

right upon which liberty depends; habeas corpus, the epicenter of

American freedom.

 

Mike lives in Washington State with his charming wife Joan and two

spoiled and overfed dogs, Cocoa and Pat-Fergie.