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Republicans Block Habeas for Gitmo Detainees
Despite the support of a solid majority of the U.S. Senate, a measure designed to restore the right of foreign terrorist suspects to challenge their detention in federal court was blocked here Wednesday on a procedural manoeuvre.
WASHINGTON - The measure, an amendment to the 2008 defense authorisation bill, would have restored habeas corpus rights for non-citizens in U.S. custody, including the some 340 prisoners still held at the naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, many of whom have been there for more than five years.
Fifty-six senators, including six Republicans, voted for the measure, four short of the 60 needed to cut off a threatened filibuster against it. Forty-three senators, all Republicans, opposed it. Of the 51 Democrats, only Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a strong supporter of the President George W. Bush's "global war on terror" who calls himself an Independent Democrat, voted against cutting off debate.
Reaction from human rights groups that had strongly supported the measure was mixed.
"The United States Senate missed a major opportunity to demonstrate leadership by failing to provide senators the opportunity to help reestablish a cornerstone of the U.S. justice system -- the right to habeas corpus," said Larry Cox, executive director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International (AIUSA).
"By not voting for cloture, the Senate gave up an important chance to help restore the United States' reputation as a nation that respects and adheres to the rule of law," he added.
But Human Rights Watch (HRW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Human Right First (HRF) were more heartened by the votes.
"Today's vote signals that congress will ultimately reverse course and reject the administration's view that it can detain people simply on the persident's say-so," said Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch, while the ACLU offered a similar reaction.
"This was a victory for those seeking to restore both the rule of law and our nation's Constitution," said Caroline Fredrickson of the group's Washington office. "While the amendment ultimately was not filibuster-proof, a majority of senators have made it clear that they want to restore the right of habeas corpus."
"A firm majority of the of the Senate voted in favour of restoring habeas corpus sends a message that there is widespread support returning to the rule of law," said HRF's Devon Chaffee.
Indeed, Wednesday's vote is unlikely to settle the matter, as a similar measure may soon come before the Democratic-led House of Representatives, where bills cannot be filibustered by the minority. If it passes the House, it will go to a House-Senate conference committee, which will likely take note that it was supported by a majority in the upper house.
In addition, the Supreme Court is due to take up an emergency appeal by two groups of Guantanamo detainees against the denial of habeas corpus under the Military Commission Act (MCA) of 2006 later this fall. In an earlier case, the Court ruled that detainees have the right to appeal their status as "enemy combatants" in federal court.
In that case, the court found that the administration of President George W. Bush, in establishing its own system of military courts to try suspected terrorists, had exceeded its constitutional powers.
As a result, the administration asked the then-Republican-led Congress to enact legislation -- the MCA -- that effectively ratified the system the administration had already put in place, including the denial of detainees' rights to challenge their detention in federal court.
The Senate approved the bill last September, just weeks before the Republicans lost their majority in both houses of Congress. It rejected by a 51-48 vote an amendment sponsored by the then Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, to restore habeas corpus in the bill. "What this bill will do is take our civilization back 900 years," argued Specter during the debate, noting that "the Great Writ," as it is sometimes called, dates back to the English Magna Carta of 1215.
Much the same argument was made today, both by Specter and his Democratic successor on the Judicial Committee, Patrick Leahy. "The truth is that casting aside the time-honoured protection of habeas corpus makes us more vulnerable as a nation because it leads us away from our core American values," Leahy said. "It calls into question our historic role as a defender of human rights around the world."
But MCA defenders argued that the detainees were likely to abuse the courts if they were granted habeas corpus rights by making frivolous appeals that would clog the system.
"To start that process would be an absolute disaster for this country," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, who co-sponsored the MCA last year. "I cannot think of a more ill-advised effort to undermine a war that I think will be a long-standing effort."
"Never has such an unprecedented legal right been granted to a prisoner of war or detainee," noted Sen. John Kyl, another MCA defender.
But, as indicated by the difference in votes between last September and today, sentiment for granting habeas corpus rights has grown in the interim, fueled in part by stories regarding the hundreds of Guantanamo detainees -- once described as the "worst of the worst" -- who never were involved with al Qaeda or the Taliban, and widely publicised charges in July by a reserve intelligence officer assigned to the military tribunals that hearings were arbitrary and often relied on evidence that was "garbage".
The New York Times and Washington Post this week published strong editorials in favour of reinstating habeas corpus rights. Even Bush's influential former speechwriter, Times columnist Michael Gerson, called earlier this month for the Guantanamo detainees to be brought to the United States and permitted to argue their cases before federal judges.
It is also possible that Bush's pick for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, may be sympathetic to restoring habeas corpus. As a New York federal judge, he ruled that a U.S. citizen, Jose Padilla, who was held as an "enemy combatant", was entitled to a legal representation under the U.S. Constitution.
© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service
25 Comments so far
Show AllWho even allowed this to run, with this title? Repugs didn't 'block' anything! They used the Filibuster, that they wanted to 'do away with', when the Dems. used it!!
IF the Dems. won't stand up for 'we the people', and are going to condenm Move-On for doing it, maybe we should do it for ourselves! The Dems. should force the Repugs. to filibuster the old fashion way, and bring everything to a halt, or not at all.
How many people, cars, baby strollers, walking your dog, would it take to bring Washington DC to a point of total gridlock? Two, maybe three million cars and people, to shut down the government. Is that what it's going to take to get our rights back, and stop the funding for this illegal occupation?
If they had restored habeus corpus for the non-citizens in our custody, would that also restore habeus corpus for US citizens?
Somebody please correct me if I am wrong. The way I see it, when the Republicans had the majority, the Democrats were afraid to filibuster bad legislature because the Republicans could vote cloture or Cheney/Bush would veto it. Now, when they are in power, they are afraid to make good legislation because the republicans might filibuster.
Meanwhile, our civil rights go down the tubes, the war goes on and we send more billions into the shredder, lubricated by blood.
It would seem to me that the Democrats should propose good legislature, the return of the Constitution to government, cut off funding for the wars, etc. Force the Republicans and the hawks to filibuster, vote it down, force the madman in the White House and his pet monkey to veto it, then turn around and introduce the same legislation again, and again.
Force the neocons and the White House to keep explaining in public, over and over, why fascism, loss of civil rights, theft of the treasury and our nation's future, slaughter of foreign peoples and the death of thousands of our serviceman and women is good for the country.
Put them on the defensive for a change, don't just be a lap dog because somebody might disagree with you. In other words, show some guts!
Any time people charged with crimes want to protect their God-given right to freedom, Bush and his minion of torture lovers say such a right to be in court is "frivolous." If Bush and his corporate masters want to go to court to squeeze money out of someone, they are just "exercising their Constitutional rights." Seems Bush, Cheney and such think the courts exist just to do the bidding of their Corporate masters.
It is easy to label someone "insurgents" or "Al Queda", or "terrorists." Since all of this stems from 9-11, and we know that we've been lied to about that, then it follows that this bunch will lie about anything to get what they want--including who the enemy is. Of course, when you invade a country for its resources and kill its people, you don't exactly want their story told to a court, do you? I mean, it might be harder to prove that someone is an insurgent or a terrorist than that 19 guys with boxcutters brought down three buildings in NY, vaporizing over 1200 people in the process--did I say vaporizing? How do burning buildings "vaporize" 1200 people? Wouldn't it take massive explosions to do that? It isn't nice to ask too many questions. Especailly in a country where the right of habeus corpus has been "disappeared."
I guess we'll all just come here day after day and rant. One morning we'll sit down at the keyboard and try to logon and find that we no longer have any access to the Internet. We'll scratch our heads, look out the window, and see Blackwater "security" vehicles and personnel. We'll turn on the TV, find out there's only one channel available, and it will tell us to remain calm and stay in our homes until transportation arrives to take us to our designated labor camp. I'm sure, as long as they let us watch American Idol after working 20 hours each day, everything will be just fine.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/unsanam2
That dreaded filibuster, Oh,chee-whillikers!
Isn't that where useless politicians stand and yap for days on end until everybody gets sick of it and votes for whatever?
Sounds exactly like what the whole bunch of them are doing anyway -- what would change?
The 'filibuster' excuse is getting old. It's the default reason for Congress not to be able to get anything done. The only thing they are able to vote on now is the Petraeus ad on Moveon.org or what they want to eat for lunch.
Don't expect anything from them. They've been there for a year now and done nothing but make excuses. Honestly, it would SHOCK me if they actually passed anything to oppose the war or the administration.
Republicans are led by the nose through fear, superstition, egotism and psychologic and sociologic dysfunction. Conservatives all, they spend lots of time trying to (as John K. Galbraith said) "find a moral justification for greed". They are anti-science because they are willfully blind. These people cannot be reasoned with. So why try?
If the bestial greedy Mammon is their leader, wouldn't it be more effective to use money as an incentive for progressive change? If you tell a middle class Republican that by incorporating We the People, we will become the equal shareholders of trillions of dollars worth of our public resources and receive dividends from this non-transferable stock that will make us all fairly rich, don't you think they would jump at the chance?
Come on everyone, this is progress! Who the hell needs habeus corpus when we are "kicking ass" in Iraq and detaining anyone who is the least perceived to be a terrorist? Control the country, control the oil, and discredit and imprison anyone who challenges authority or asks the wrong questions is the modus operandi of the day. Hell, we will even throw in the MSM as a bonus. Nobody needs to hear about the civil war in Iraq, nor the charred bodies of innocent bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a truck bomb exploded. This is progress. Hell, the "Decider" even said it himself that Iraqis are enjoying life and democracy. They even have the ink on their index fingers to prove it. The Iraqis ought to feel fully secure and protected by contracting agencies such as Blackwater that randomly shoot at anything that moves and completely are immune from any accountability. Who gives a shit that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security miserably failed their audits? We can always send more money, and we have the politicians to do it. Ah, this is progress. I already am starting to feel better.
No, because it would make US all rich, not exclusively them.
The headline and first paragraph of this article is a lie! Habeas Corpus, the Great Writ of the Magna Carta, was not just removed from the rights of "noncitizens in US custody," as the article says. All the legal experts agree that there is no exemption in the M.C.A. for citizens. Even Inter-Press parrots the Administration line, not the position of Human Rights Watch (HRW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Human Rights First (HRF ), which the article refers to. They should be ashamed of their poor journalism.
The M.C.A. removed the right to be heard in court if detained from ALL of us. The M.C.A. language does not limit that restriction to noncitizens but covers those whom the President deems unworthy. Our government under Bill Clinton and GWB has been passing legislation to incarcerate "terrorists" since the 1993 WTO protests in Seattle. Those camps being built by Halliburton all around the country are for us protesters, and the language of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act is deliberately vague as to who is a "terrorist" and covered by it, and it certainly does not exclude citizens. No doubt the government wants to be able to incarcerate us in those camps if we stop being compliant about how they are running things.
The latest several Executive Orders also broaden the powers of the President, under the unitary executive theory, to prosecute (persecute) any person the President deems as assisting "terrorists." They are all so broad as to put us under a dictatorship.
Nevertheless, we must protest and stop being compliant about the loss of our Constitutional rights.
I'm not the swiftest salmon in the stream, but I could see this coming from a mile away. Last October, we were told that some Democrats "had to" support the evisceration of habeas corpus and the Geneva Convention so that they could win in red states. We needed to suck it up and vote for them anyway. We could always try to get civil liberties back "later" after the Democrats won a majority. Well, it turns out that Bu$h is no dummy. He doesn't give stuff back after you hand it to him on a platter.
Several people here have made excellent commentary. In a sense, the Democrats and Republicans have been dependent on one another, as a place to lay blame. The pendulum swung far during the Bush administration -- to the point in which a single party (in name) controlled all branches.
It would be equally dangerous for the Dems to enjoy such a majority and have nobody but themselves to blame. The corporate parties rely on one another.
I'd like to think I'm wrong, to give the Dems the benefit of the doubt, but as others here have indicated, do they really use all procedural tools to their advantage? Why or why not?
They can't vote to restore habeus corpus...but
They actually could vote to condemn MoveOn. org by 72-25!
Really!
Dems voted to condemn a popular movement group for the Petreaus ads! When WE WERE RIGHT!!!!
Petreaus isn't to be questioned, even though he was NOT UNDER OATH????
But to give us our Constitutional rights is off the table because it might be vetoed????? Same excuse as impeachment!
We MUST get these people OUT!
AAACK!
my mum always used to say "wear clean underwear" nowadays its also carry your own KY jelly because when the govt finishes bending you over and having intercoursed all rights that are left they use their lube.and their's has sand in it
Roundabout: guess we'll all just come here day after day and rant. One morning we'll sit down at the keyboard and try to logon and find that we no longer have any access to the Internet. We'll scratch our heads, look out the window, and see Blackwater "security" vehicles and personnel."
Then we may have to take a page out of the book of the Vietnamese and the Iraqis. Seems like all that fire power isn't doing that much good in Iraq--a little roadside bomb here and there seems to do the trick for a band of people who don't even have an organized army. The Romans learned this the hardway, too,--I think it was in Germany when tribes came out of the woods, attacked the Roman armies--then the mighest and best equipped-- and disappeared into the woods again. It might not be as easy with the new technology that they have to hunt you down, but it can be done. Ask the Iraqis. Ask the Vietnamease. Hell, Blackwater is good at shooting unarmed civilians, but they can barely get out of the Green Zone.
I talked with a man the other day and he said: "don't tell me all that bullshit you read about on those website until you are willing to pick up a gun and do something about it." Hmm, he may just have a point. I certainly don't bore him with the details anymore.
As for ezeflyer: they would just look at you like you are a fool and ask you why you are wanting to "socialize" resources. Privitize means all for me and mine and little or none for you and yours.
If Reid had any cohones, he'd let the Republicans filibuster. They'd dig their own graves in full view of the entire nation, and when they were good and done, they'd have cloture and an up or down vote.
But sadly the DNC dimocrats are triangualting themselves into irrelevence.
libertas fuigit - your exhortation to Dems is exactly to the point, and implies things beyond the point. Where the hell is their courage?
I think more of us need to ask them this question, on a person-to-person level, even as we prepare for other action.
When I recently got my Democrat US senator on the phone (again), about this chronnic lack of guts, he said he agreed, but wasn't calling the shots; that Sen. Reid and other Senate leaders use their committee & bill assignment powers to more or less intimidate and dictate these craven strategies during caucus meetings.
What follows is a paraphrase of the remaing conversation I had with this senator, yesterday:
So why don't you try to organize a rebellion in the caucus? -I asked. His answer: there's a dissenting minority who don't agree with Reid - and they constantly let him know it, but they don't have enough caucus votes to do anything.
[[Since I worked hard to get this now-senator elected, I pushed him further]]:
So, given the danger to the county, and constitutional the principles involed, and the untried options to use greater congressional power against the neocons, and the stupidity of your own caucus leadership, why not then go to the press and tell the public you don't agree with your own caucus leadership? Why not lead a rebellion in this useless Demo Party by publicly shaming your colleagues into doing what's right?
His answer: where would it go?: nowhere. And I'd be dead in the water on any other issues I'm working on, for having tried. Would you do it, my friend, if you were in my place?
My reply: Yes, I would do it because the weight of these matters demand that it be done. People want you to do what's right. And if you can't start showing the courage we elected you to show, me and many others who got you elected will never support your election again.
[[My senator friend, a senate freshman with populist views but with zero seniority, went on to other subjects after this exchange, during which he seemed pensive, bummed-out hopefully about himself - not about my needling]]
There's nothing heroic or daring in what I did, and I'm not trying to post it here that way or suggest we ignore the bigger picture of a collapsed system.
But I really believe more us of who post on this site, and claim to care, ought to try to find the citizen courage to confront Dem congresspeople, personally, along similar lines, no matter what else we may do. My particular, easier, access to a few congresspeople who I happen to personally know, is obviously atypical.
The average citizens CAN get his/her congressperson on the phone -- just as a seriously-concerned consitutent-- if you persist and emphatically (but not crazily) demand access from their senior staff. More often than not, the congressperson will will get back to you, personally if you persist in this manner.
But what's the use? -- you might well ask.
The use is that most congresspeople begin to loose touch with regular citizens as soon as they get elected. Their staffs usually try to buffer them from such contacts -- even at live home district/state meetings -- in the name of preventing them from being 'overwhlemed' or publicly embarrassed.
But the staffs know that it will also become an embarrassment if their bosses gets seen as 'hiding' from rational, persistent citizens who want to personally talk to them.
Talking to, and personally advocating to, your (or any) congressperson is not going to change the maddenss of current federal policies or the decadent system that underlies these policies.
But direct citizen-to-lawmaker exchanges (if you're cogent enough, and have your points well-prepared and emphatically conveyed), does put these 'leaders' on the spot, even if for a seeming moment. And the more-decent of them are affected by this: they tend to emotionally remember it; it jolts their conscience.
Especially if there are many such citizen exchanges, the better of the congresspeople begin to have doubts about what they're doing; doubts that otherwise wouldn't easily ensue, just from personal letters or negative public opinion polls, etc.
How many decent/semi-unhypnotized congresspersons even remain to be affect thus?
I don't know, but I think the number is greater than we may suppose. And that differential may be because we don't really understand how and why the countervailing force of institutional hypnosis works so easily to corrupt the otherwise privately-good moral moorings of humans who gain political power in a crisis-ridden political culture.
I'm not saying instituional hypnosis is a valid excuse for insane human conduct - just that it is a deeply wired, unpleasant human feature, not much different than needing to defecate and wipe ones' butt.
Anyway, I think that, even as we (need to) work to displace the present Democrat Party with someting better, we should simultaneously work to reform the existing party from within by confronting its current power fonts, understanding that the best direction for effective change will show itself in the process of doing both.
I think that most of us who post fulminations here, against the present Dems, in favor of genuine progressives values, are absolutely justified in doing so. But I also think that most of us who post here are not typical humans, psychologically; and that we (therefore) fail to understand (what it means to not understand) that both Parties are made-up of very typical humans: whether they're neocon madmen or swaggering, pre-election progressive reformers.
Most of people who get elected to congress or any political office, already are in potential, or quickly become, institutionalized herd-mentality people. Would Greens or democratic socialists, for example, be any different in this respect? I suspect not, despite their outwardly better political/economic principles.
In any case, even as we work to transform the present, rotten system, personal citizen contact with whomever holds power in our congress (and the mainstream media, too), is one thing we should all try to do, at least as much as we fulminate anonymously in cyberspace.
Call-down the power brokers, personally, wherever possible. Make them account directly to you, as a fellow human being, for the provable misuse of the public power you've entrusted them with.
In recommed all this 'working within and without the system' and try to act on it, myself, not because I blindly believe in the system or in its redeemability, or in revolution or its viability. but because more radical alternatives odn't seem to have viability to even buy time.
Meanwhile, I'm also at work trying to build alternate forms of people power - non-governmental economic forms - among neighbors and friends in my area, and I recommend that all of us progressives begin doing something similar, no matter what else. An unavoidable societal collapse may well be coming, and we progressives will need to survivive it better than the those who've caused it.
Who was doing the filibustering? Names please.
Every country that suspends civil rights for "certain groups" ends up with suspension for all it's citizens.including Senators. Go back to Octavius and Augustus.Stalin,Hitler,Mao,Mussolini,George Bush,Franco,Slorc.All us the same tactics to get in and all get in "to assure peace in the Empire".
Watch it unfold.
what is with this 60 votes crap? Bush got in with 46-48% of the vote and we need 60 (60%)votes to discuss how to exit the Iraq quagmire?
I'm infuriated!
Just remember the Right to Torture and End Habeas Corpus Act (Military Commissions Act) passed with substantisl Democratic support. Once it passed, everyone knew it would require 67/60 in order to reverse it. So the Dems are equally responsible for the fact the Republicans were successful in preventing restoration of habeas corpus from reaching a vote. Now, some Dems who voted for the Right to Torture and End Habeas Corpus Act voted to restore habeas corpus -- talking out of both sides of their mouths, just like they do on the war. There is no reason to believe that more Democrats in Congress will change anything, except, perhaps which contractors get the no-bid contracts in Iraq.
Most of the detainees were turned over by groups such as the Northern Alliance for a $5,000 dollar reward which is a large amount of money in that part of the world. Which is why many have been quietly released without any fanfare after being held for years, their lives ruined.
To hold the remainder without giving them the right to challenge their detention in court is IMO reprehensible. If Bush and the Republicans had any real evidence to hold them on they wouldn't be fighting so hard to deny them the right of Habeas Corpus and they would have tried them already.
Lobo Gris
It tells me something about a government who does not respect people's rights. When they go out of their way to try and deprive people of their basic freedoms. And none of it is good. Bush and Company have made it clear from day one they don't believe in the same set of values that this country was founded on. Somewhere along the line the Republican party got completely off track and started down the road to fascism. So, their ideal's should be completely alien to most American's. But, unfortunately enough to many right wing nuts seem to think these people are a god send. I have never been certain these detainees were actually terrorist's. That is how credible our government is these days. There isn't much that comes out of their mouths that can be believed.
Libertas Fugit,
Well Said, Well Said!!!!This is something that should be shouted from the rooftops, treetops, shoetops, etc. etc. until these spineless, gutless, poor excuses for humans can get a pair of balls and stand up to these FASCIST CRIMINALS!!!! They are all criminals though, including the Demopubs, for being complicit in every single action of the Republicrats.
Then again, this also explains why they are complicit in all of it.
It is all sooooooooo frustrating. The realization that until we get a second party, we can't do a thing to change the current situation. And the amerikan people are so dumb and lazy, this probably won't happen in yours or my lifetime!!! But I will still scream bloody murder until something changes because that's really all I can do!!!!
Peace!!!