A Broken Writ, a Kangaroo Court

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http://inthesetimes.com/article/12702/a_broken_writ_a_kangaroo_court

On New Year’s Eve, President Barack Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes the indefinite detention without trial of alleged al-Qaeda terrorists – including American citizens, if the president so chooses. President Obama issued a signing statement promising not to use these new powers against Americans, which – as comedian Stephen Colbert pointed out – might be comforting if Obama passed another law declaring that no one besides him can ever be president.

Even our current Supreme Court, unduly concerned with the rights of corporations, might find that a law stripping Americans of their constitutional rights based on mere allegations violates the nation’s founding document.

Or perhaps not. The Court was called on once, in 2004, to rule on the legality of holding Chicagoan José Padilla without charges in solitary confinement at a naval brig in South Carolina, but it ducked the constitutional issue and dismissed Padilla’s habeas petition on a technicality.

One of the leading proponents of NDAA, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), assures Americans that habeas corpus will prevent the president from holding people without cause. But Levin should have checked to see what remains of the “great writ” after 10 years of efforts by government lawyers to weaken it in order to justify the indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees.