-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 19, 2007 9:07:40 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Senate Fails to Resurrect Habeas Corpus
Senate Drops Bill to Restore Habeas Corpus
Democrats Outnumbered, Nay-Saying Republicans Kill Bill
Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:43pm EDT
By Susan Cornwell
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1924593620070919?sp=true
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate voted on Wednesday against
considering a measure to give Guantanamo detainees and other
foreigners the right to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts.
The legislation needed 60 votes to be considered by lawmakers in
the Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats; it received only 56,
with 43 voting against the effort to roll back a key element of
President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.
The measure would have granted foreign terrorism suspects the right
of habeas corpus, Latin for "you have the body," which prevents the
government from locking people up without review by a court.
Congress last year eliminated this right for non-U.S. citizens
labeled "enemy combatants" by the government. The Bush
administration said this was necessary to prevent them from being
set free and attacking Americans.
The move affected about 340 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives
held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. It also affects
millions of permanent legal residents of the United States who are
not U.S. citizens, said one of the sponsors of the bipartisan
measure, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
"Any of these people could be detained forever without the ability
to challenge their detention in federal court" under the changes in
law Congress made last year, Leahy said on the Senate floor. This
was true "even if they (authorities) made a mistake and picked up
the wrong person."
"This was a mistake the last Congress and the (Bush) administration
made, based on fear," Leahy said.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican opposing the
measure, said lawmakers should not allow "some of the most brutal
vicious people in the world to bring lawsuits against their own
(U.S.) troops" who had picked up the detainees on the battlefield.
Giving habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees would "really intrude
into the military's ability to manage this war," Graham said,
adding that it was "something that has never been granted to any
other prisoner in any other war."
"Our judges don't have the military background to make decisions as
to who the enemy is," Graham told the Senate.
Congress eliminated habeas rights as part of the Military
Commissions Act, which also created new military tribunals to try
the Guantanamo prisoners on war crimes charges.
Congress was led by Republicans when the act was rushed through,
shortly before new elections put Democrats in control.
Sen. Arlen Specter, another sponsor of the bill and a Pennsylvania
Republican, noted that the right to habeas corpus was a protection
against arbitrary arrest enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and
dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215.
Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear
arguments from lawyers from Guantanamo prisoners challenging the
law to eliminate the habeas right.
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