[silence]
by John at 12/07/2006 09:14:00 AM
What's that sound? That's the sound of me not banging my head against a wall anymore.
Legislators may reconsider suspending habeas corpus for detainees
By Lesley Clark and Margaret Talev
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush's victory in getting the rules he wanted to try suspected terrorists could be diminished.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, which Bush signed into law in October, prevents detainees who aren't U.S. citizens from challenging their detentions in civilian courts. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who voted for the legislation despite his opposition to stripping such rights from detainees, on Tuesday reintroduced legislation to restore those rights. A similar measure sponsored by Specter failed by three votes in October.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Specter said he was reintroducing the issue to prevent federal courts from striking down the legislation, which some of the detainees' attorneys have challenged.
But some lawmakers privately speculated that Specter may have decided to reintroduce the legislation after a recent article in the New Yorker magazine suggested that his desire to retain his powerful committee chairmanship led him to go along with the administration's wishes.
Specter on Tuesday repeated his contention that the act violates the Constitution.
"The Constitution of the United States is explicit that habeas corpus may be suspended only in time of rebellion or invasion," Specter said on the floor. "We are suffering neither of those alternatives at the present time. We have not been invaded, and there has not been a rebellion. That much is conceded."
His co-sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who'll become chairman of the Judiciary Committee when the Democrats take over in January, noted that the effort to secure habeas appeals for all detainees failed by only three votes.
"Since then, the American people have spoken against the administration's stay- the-course approach to national security and against a rubber-stamp Congress that accommodated this administration's efforts to grab more and more power," Leahy said. "Abolishing habeas corpus for anyone who the government thinks might have assisted enemies of the United States is unnecessary and morally wrong. It is a betrayal of the most basic values of freedom for which America stands."
