Wanted: Habeas Corpus' Return - LOTS of Questions Asked (Like, How Could We Give It Up?)

I love this from the ACLU. Link is here.

Bad For Detainees, Bad for Democracy, Bad For America, Bad for the World

I have been meaning to write about Tuesday's really B-A-D federal appeals court decision FOR Bush's terror kangaroo court system and against detainees. While I am NOT a constitutional lawyer, I have been back and forth over it today and before and I do not see that its tenets are limited exclusively to American citizens. And that's not even arguing the never-never-land of limbo Bush has put many of these folks into at Gitmo and in secret prisons the world over!

For those who don't know about Tuesday's disastrous decision, here's CNN's piece and with it, their point summary:

• Judges OK anti-terrorism provision barring detainees from civilian courts
• Foreigners held in U.S. normally have right to contest their detention
• Justice Department: Constitution doesn't protect foreign enemy combatants
• Ruling is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court

Bob Herbert: "The Real Patriots"

Read it all here:

If we could manage to get past the tedious and the odious — like the empty speculation on whether a woman can win, or whether Barack Obama is black enough — we might be able to engage the essential issue facing the U.S. at this point in our history.

And that is whether, once the Bush administration has finally and mercifully run its course, the country goes back to being a reasonably peaceful, lawful, constructive force in the world, or whether we continue down the bullying, warlike, unilateral, irresponsible, unlawful and profoundly ineffective path laid out by Bush, Cheney & Co.

The question is not so much whether a Republican or a Democrat takes the White House in the next election; it’s whether the American people can take back their country.

I don’t think most Americans are up for perennial warfare. And whatever the polls might say, it’s very hard for me to accept that the men and women who rise from their seats and cover their hearts at the start of sporting events are really in favor of dismantling the system of checks and balances, or holding people in prison for years without charging them, or torturing prisoners in U.S. custody, or giving the president the raw power and unsavory privileges of an emperor.

It was Richard Nixon who said, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, operating behind the mammoth fig leaf of national security, took this theoretical absurdity to heart and put it into widespread practice.

There are, however, many thoughtful Americans who want to stop this calamitous disregard for the rule of law, two of whom I’ll mention today — Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Senator Chris Dodd.

[...]The senator and Mr. Schwarz, in their different ways, are among the many quiet patriots who are spreading the word that the very meaning of the United States, the whole point of this fragile experiment in representative democracy, will be lost if the nation’s ironclad commitment to the rule of law is allowed to unravel.

See the Wealthy Frenchman for the rest.

Restore Habeas Corpus And Much of the Rest of the U.S. Constitution - PLEASE!

From Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, one of four Dem authors of the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 (with a nod to GOTV blog for the link):

Please take a moment to watch the video and read the text of the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, sign on as a citizen co-sponsor, and forward the bill to your personal networks. While you and I are acutely aware of the damage President Bush has done to our country's national reputation, too many of our family, friends and neighbors have no idea how far this Administration has gone.

You may want to add Restore Habeas Corpus to your blog list!