Leahy Holds Hearings On Habeas Corpus Today

[Me.]

I know I and many others have been asking when the Senate is going to do something about Habeas Corpus. I hadn't heard about the hearing today until I read FDL.

<<<>>>

“It is time that we started living our values as a nation again. Hypocrisy is no foundation on which to build trust and bonds with other nations — and it is those very bonds, which the Bush Administration has so weakened the last few years, which tie us all together more safely with the other free nations of the world. We forget who we are at our nation's peril, and it is well past time for us to wake from this dazed stupor and stand up for the rights for which our ancestors risked their lives, and for which our nation's soldiers have risked theirs in the face of tyranny over all the years since.

We must live up to our values and the rule of law. Now.

10:02 am ET

SEN. LEAHY is opening the hearing and discussing the need to restore habeas from its hastily passed removal in the Military Commissions Act. Leahy talks about the MCA being passed before the election in 2006, and as a great stain on the American legal and political landscape moved forward by the same fear that led to internment of the Japanese in WWII.

Leahy now talking briefly about immigration reforms, and the attempt to tie the issue to fear and terrorists — and how the issue of habeas relates to this because a person picked up on American soil would no long have any recourse for habeas. Discussing a case where a detainee habeas case in Virginia — where that person was picked up on American soil, in American custody, and imprisoned here in the US — wherein the DoJ argued that the detainee had no right to a habeas petition in that situation. Castigating AG Gonzales for saying that habeas is not contained in the US Constitution — this is profoundly unAmerican and shameful.

Top legal scholars — including conservatives — agree that this change betrays centuries of legal practice and values on which our nation and other nations of the world have been founded, betrays the human law, and undermines our strength and ability to defend justice. This action born of fear weakens our nation's standing among the other nations of the world.” Cont…

ttp://www.firedoglake.com/2007/05/22/habeas-hearing-in-senate-judiciary-this-morning/#more-9218

[acmavm]

1. Good luck to the guy. He's fighting against a tide of republican obstruction

and dems that have their hands out begging for corporate money.

[Me.]

3. That's My Feeling Too

The whole matter makes me want to scream. Especially this quote re: Specter. "Specter says that he, candidly, doubts that the President would sign a bill restoring habeas if it landed on his desk, but that Congress must bring this pressure to bear regardless."

What the bloody hell is wrong with these people? I notice that the minute any of them have been in trouble they're all for getting their lawyers to demand every possible right.

[asjr]

2. I'm tired of hearings and do-nothing rhetoric.

[slowry]

4. Prevention is the best medicine. n/t

[disndat]

5. Don't forget,

the Democrats have, just barely, got back control of Congress. After 6 years of the Bush Crime family and all out support by big corporate media, it will take more than a few weeks to put the deluge of crimes that * has committed together. Keep the faith, impeachment is near. James Comey testimony was the "John Dean" Watergate moment.

[Oilwellian]

6. I thought that's the first thing the Dems did when they took Congress

Didn't the Senate vote to restore it with 90 something votes? We didn't lose habeas due to fear...we lost it because we have a dictator for a president.

[Nikki Stone1]

7. It just seems bizarre to hold hearings on a fundamental part of our Constitution

Only the evil administration at the helm could make this a reality

[lovuian]

8. it shouldn't even have to be debated

this was given to us back at the magna Carta

[Nikki Stone1]

9. No kidding.

It's like we're living in a parallel universe