Currently, some right-thinking politicians are trying to restore the parts of Habeas Corpus that were taken away by the MCA-2006

In that regard, a bill, provisionally called the “Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007″, S. 185, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 2007. A version of the Senate bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives (H.R. 1416) by Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Jane Harman (D-CA).
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Although the MCA-2006 was primarily designed for the ill-defined category of illegal enemy combatants, i.e., detainees held in Guantanamo, in theory it can be applied to any U.S. citizen at the President’s discretion.

One section of the MCA-2006 specifically targets “any person [who] in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States.” Indeed, the “any person” language in sections dealing with a wide array of crimes, including traditional offenses such as spying, suggests that a parallel legal system has been created outside the parameters of the US Constitution.

At any rate, until the House of Representatives pass their version of the Habeas Restoration Act, and until the President signs it, American citizens are theoretically without the right of Habeas.

So, looking back in history, way back to 1215 when the Magna Carta was established, Americans in 2006 lost the fundamental right extant for the past791 years in the English-speaking, English common law world. (Citizens of the U.K. still have this right.) In that regard, the Magna Carta supports the right which became known as “Habeas Corpus” via clauses 36, 38, 39, and 40 of the 1215 A.D. “Great Charter.”

If that doesn’t keep you awake at night, consider that Bush signed 2 executive orders in 2007 giving the Feds basically an unchecked ability to strip any citizen of ALL his or her assets. The first of these executive orders, titled “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq,” signed by Bush in July 2007, authorizes the Secretary of Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to confiscate the assets of US citizens and organizations who “directly or indirectly” pose a risk to US operations in Iraq.

Bush’s order states: “I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined 1) to have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq . . . or 2) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order . . .
Section five of this order announces that, “because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine . . . there need be no prior notice of listing or determination [of seizure] . . .”

ON TOP OF THAT EXEC ORDER, in August 2007, Bush issued a similar executive order, titled “Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions.” While the text in this order is, for the most part, identical to the first, the order regarding Lebanon is more severe.
While both orders bypass the Constitutional right to due process of law in giving the Secretary of Treasury authority to seize properties of those persons posing a risk of violence, or in any vague way assisting opposition to US agenda, the August 1 order targets any person determined to have taken, or to pose a significant risk of taking, actions—violent or nonviolent—that undermine operations in Lebanon. The act further authorizes freezing the assets of “a spouse or dependent child” of any person whose property is frozen. The executive order on Lebanon also bans providing food, shelter, medicine, or any humanitarian aid to those whose assets have been seized—including the “dependent children” referred to above.
Vaguely written and dangerously open to broad interpretation, this unconstitutional order allows for the arbitrary targeting of any American for dispossession of all belongings.

IN SUMMARY, THERE YOU HAVE THREE GOOD REASONS TO PRACTICE TARGET SHOOTING…

I’m glad there are some people on my side, but I’m surprised by how may responses go something along the lines of, “Yeah, we shouldn’t detain them we should just shoot them,” or, “I don’t want to pay for a trial, so screw them,” or, “We can’t give them a trial because if they are found innocent we would have to let them go.” No shit. That’s kind of the point, right?

My personal favorite is, and I quote, “The issue here is that they do not have a reason to be put in jail. But because of abuses they have gone through they would be a danger if they were let go.” You’ve got to be kidding me. We put innocent people in jail and we can’t release them because they have a grudge? Talk about a Catch-22.

I’m with Michaelc on this one, what with his famous “but what if it were me” argument. The thing is, there needs to be some sort of legal recourse for people who are mistakenly imprisoned. That’s what trials are for; to give people a fair chance to defend themselves and to confront their accusers. Just imagine if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time (or your wife, or your daughter) and you were thrown in jail for no reason and with no hope of ever getting out. Wouldn’t you be pissed? Can you imagine being in jail for YEARS having done nothing wrong simply because the government has “the power” and nobody felt like standing up for your rights?

I’m also glad mcl took the time to go through all the history, although World War II is a bad example because we did lock up all the Japanese-Americans. However, we should learn from that lesson and not do it again.

basicly everyone can be locked down because they might commit a crime in the future.

i am not from the usa, but i suggest you leave your country sooner than later. canada looks cool =)

wish you all good luck!

If you are not a sheeple american eating the shit they feed you, they will detain you on the grounds that “you may cause trouble in the future”, so its better that they just arrest you now…

Its Orwellian reality at its finest. 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 (the dumbing down of society), Fascism, and Insane Corporatism at its finest.

When will we as Americans wake up to the hell our ‘leaders’ have created for us!?

I was reading in the New York Times today about President Obama’s plan to allow terrorists to be detained without a trial.

Wrong.

There is no evidence that many of the people held at Guantanamo Bay are terrorists, or ever committed a violent act. A number of the people held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent bystanders fraudlently sold to the U.S. army by corrupt Afghan warlords looking for a quick payoff by lying to get reward money.

Other people held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent people like the cab driver Dilawar, who was simply driving at the wrong place in the wrong time. Even his interrogators came to believe Dilawar was innocent.

But Dilawar and Maher Arar are not the only innocent bystanders who were swept up, hurled into pirosn without charges or trial, and locked away for years.

Many detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday.

“There are still innocent people there,” Republican Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to then-secretary of state Colin Powell, told the Associated Press. “Some have been there six or seven years.”

Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a “mosaic” of intelligence.

Most Guantanamo detainees are innocent: Ex-Bush official

Ever since the Magna Carta in 1215, the fundamental basis of Western law has been recognized to be the right of everyone accused of a crime to face his accuser, he charged with a crime when arrested, and be tried by a jury of hi/r peers.

But the requirement that a person accused of a crime must be charged and face his accuser and be put on trial goes back much farther than merely 800 years, it is the very foundation and cornerstone of Western civilization. At the end of the Orestes Trilogy, Aeschylus describes how the endless cycle of revenge killings that began when Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon finally ended, when Apollo created the jury trial to decide guilt or innocence.

The Supreme Court decision Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432; 15 S. Ct. 394, contains a thorough history of the ancient principle that an accused be charged when arrested, and be allowed a trial:

Greenleaf traces this presumption to Deuteronomy, and quotes Mascardus De Probationibus to show that it was substantially embodied in the laws of Sparta and Athens. Greenl. Ev. part 5, section 29, note. Whether Greenleaf is correct or not in this view, there can be no question that the Roman law was pervaded with the results of this maxim of criminal administration, as the following extracts show:

“Let all accusers understand that they are not to prefer charges unless they can be proven by proper witnesses or by conclusive documents, or by circumstantial evidence which amounts to indubitable proof and is clearer than day.” Code, L. IV, T. XX, 1, 1. 25.

The noble (bivus) Trajan wrote to Julius Frontonus that no man should be condemned on a criminal charge in his absence, because it was better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent.” Dig. L. XLVIII, Tit. 19, 1. 5.

(..)

Ammianus Marcellinus relates an anecdote of the Emperor Julian which illustrates the enforcement of this principle in the Roman law. Numerius, the governor of Narbonensis, was on trial before the Emperor, and, contrary to the usage in criminal cases, the trial was public. Numerius contented himself with denying his guilt, and there was not sufficient proof against him. His adversary, Delphidius, “a passionate man,” seeing that the failure of the accusation was inevitable, could not restrain himself, and exclaimed, “Oh, illustrious Caesar! if it is sufficient to deny, what hereafter will become of the guilty?” to which Julian replied, “If it suffices to accuse, what will become of the innocent?” Rerum Gestarum, L. XVIII, c. 1. The rule thus found in the Roman law was, along with many other fundamental and humane maxims of that system, preserved for mankind by the canon law. Decretum Gratiani de Presumptionibus, L. II, T. XXIII, c. 14, A.D. 1198; Corpus Juris Canonici Hispani et Indici, R.P. Murillo Velarde, Tom. 1, L. II, n. 140.

Fortescue says: “Who, then, in England can be put to death unjustly for any crime? since he is allowed so many pleas and privileges in favor of life; none but his neighbors, men of honest and good repute, against whom he can have no probable cause of exception, can find the person accused guilty. Indeed, one would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally.” De Laudibus Legum Angliae, Amos’ translation, Cambridge, 1825.

Lord Hale (1678) says: “In some cases presumptive evidence goes far to prove a person guilty, though there be no express proof of the fact to be committed by him, but then it must be very warily pressed, for it is better five guilty persons should escape unpunished than one innocent person should die.” 2 Hale P.C. 290. He further observes: “And thus the reasons stand on both sides, and though these seem to be stronger than the former, yet in a case of this moment it is safest to hold that in practice, which hath least doubt and danger, quod dubitas, ne faceris.” 1 Hale P.C. 24.

Blackstone (1753-1765) maintains that “the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” 2 Bl. Com. c. 27, margin page 358, ad finem.

To abandon this most ancient of all fundamental rights, the right of the accused to be charged and stand trial, is worse than barbarism: it is savagery, it is lawlessness, it is the most despicable kind of tyranny known to man.

For 200 years America has successfully dealt with every crime, every heinous act, every violent attack by using Western common law: whenever someone gets arrested, we charge that person with a crime, hold a trial, present evidence, and let a jury decide.

No crime has ever been so hideous that it required America to abandon the rule of law, not for 200 years: rape, murder, torture, secession, rebellion, treason, presidential assassination, serial killers, Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald… In every single case, America successfully dealt with criminals by staying within the rule of law laid down for thousands of years, all the way back to Athens and Rome.

Now all of a sudden, because 3 jets were hijacked on 9/11, we’re going to abandon the rule of law that has formed the basis of Western civilization for 2000 years, and kidnap people and hold them in prison without charges and without access to a lawyer and without trial, forever, on the mere unsubstantiated accusation that they did something bad.

Why?

America faced a million hardened Nazi troops in WW II, we faced the German Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe and the Imperial Japanese Navy and hundreds of U-boats and thousands of dive bombers and Messerschmidt fighters and the Imperial Japanese Army, and we didn’t find it necessary to kidnap German soldiers and hold them in prison without charges or a trial. Why now?

During the Cold War, America faced 3000 nuclear warheads and 60 Soviet tank divisions and three million soldiers in the Russian Red Army, and we didn’t find it necessary to kidnap people and hold them without charges in a secret prison without lawyers and without a trial. Why now?

Think about it. In WW II we faced the entire Third Reich and the Empire of Japan, millions of men bent on America’s destruction, fleets of thousands of planes, hundreds of enemy ships, hundreds of U-boats and Japanese submarines, yet America never abandoned the rule of law.

During the Cold War we were threatened by thousands of nuclear weapons and millions of Red Army soldiers and thousands of tanks and bombers and dozens of Soviet nuclear subs. Yet we still didn’t throw away the rule of law.

But now, faced with 19 guys armed with box cutters, America is going to abandon the fundamental basis of Western law for the last 800 years and start kidnapping suspects and throw ‘em in prison without charges, without trial, with a lawyer?

This is insane.

I can’t believe anyone is even debating this.

This is lawless. It’s barbarism.

The instant you throw away due process, you have headed down a very dark road.

Wife: Arrest him!
More: For what?
Wife: He’s dangerous!
Roper: For all we know he’s a spy!
Daughter: Father, that man’s bad!
More: There’s no law against that!
Roper: There is, God’s law!
More: Then let God arrest him!
Wife: While you talk he’s gone!
More: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

[A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt, 1960]

If anyone truly thinks that abandoning due process and throwing out due process and the right to trial going all the way back to the Athens and Rome is a good idea, I tell you what:

Emigrate to North Korea.

They don’t have due process there. Someone accuses of something, regardless whether you actually did it, you get kidnapped and thrown into prison without charges and without trial. And you may rot there. You may die there.

You really love the idea of abandoning due process and the right of trial by jury?

Your paradise awaits in Pyongyang. Get moving.