Habeas Corpus takes a Holiday

Well it has started, the courts have been told they do not have the jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus cases. The Bush administration is quick to use the powers that the legislature gave last week. Read on>>>

With hundreds of habeas corpus petitions waiting to be heard from Guantanamo Bay prison, the administration has told the courts they no longer have the power to hear theses cases.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

Yesterday I wrote back to the Washington Observer-Reporter, after reading a letter to the editor, that was entitled, “Could a Letter Writer Disappear?, but the letter itself wasn’t the problem it was the responses that were posted to the letter. The people just don’t get it. Most seem to think that it is just for detainees, (enemy combatants). They don’t know that they themselves are potential enemies of the State. So in my letter I try to straighten that out for them.

As I pointed out yesterday the two biggest freedom destroying laws are the Patriot Act,(and all its revisions.) and HR 6166,(Military Commissions Act of 2006 .) The latter of the 2 actually gives an unprecedented power to the administration that is suppose to be working for us. I think we need to hope beyond all hopes that the Power in the Congress and Senate is transferred to the Left and we can begin to restore the America I once new. If nothing changes at least we will know for sure that both parties are one in the same.

A week or two back, Gonzalez threatened the courts not to mess with any of the administrations calls on the laws. The reason I bring this up is that the law is already being challenged.

The new law already has been challenged as unconstitutional by lawyers representing the petitioners. The issue of detainee rights is likely to reach the Supreme Court for a third time.

Habeas corpus, a Latin term meaning "you have the body," is one of the oldest principles of English and American law. It requires the government to show a legal basis for holding a prisoner.

In the last two years, The Supreme Court heard two cases in which they ruled in favor of the detainees. These cases seemed to have pointed out that the government was wrong in the way they were using the law. But as the legislature always seem to do for the administration, changed the laws to suite the wants of the administration. The one thing that was done with this act was that the interpretation of a key definition was left up to the administration, Enemy Combatant.

The administration wasted no time, or as my daughter says, “They didn’t let any grass grow under their feet.”

Immediately after Bush signed the act into law Tuesday, the Justice Department sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asserting the new authorities and informing the court that it no longer had jurisdiction over a combined habeas case that had been under consideration since 2004. The U.S. District Court cases, which had been stayed pending the appeals court decision, were similarly invalid, the administration informed that court on Wednesday.

I am uncertain what can be done to reverse the “Military Commissions Act of 2006”, but it needs to done now, before it is used against, Bloggers, Protesters, and anyone that speaks out against the administration. Those who know the constitution know that to suspend habeas corpus is to violate the constitution. A very important clause in the Section dealing with Habeas Corpus, is one that should make the people of this country quake in their boots. “The right to challenge detention "shall not be suspended" except in cases of "rebellion or invasion."

So, with that in mind does anyone that speaks out against the policies of this our any future administration run the risk of being jailed for their actions? Will we see what Adams did when he suspended Habeas Corpus, and jail those News paper people, and others including members of Congress, and the Senate, who spoke out against him and his policies? I guess only time will tell, and I hope time proves me wrong.


ABA
Ps. The next time someone tells you, Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, remind them he had a rebellion on his hands. This little skirmish called “The Civil War”.

[Note] As of this morning the Observer-Reporter had not changed its on line pages. Although the letter I mentioned was taken down. I will have to call my friends at the paper.