NEW YORK - September 29 - Today the Senate voted 51-48 against an amendment proposed by Senator Arlen Specter to the Military Commissions Act which would have preserved the right of habeas corpus. Center for Constitutional Rights Executive Director Vincent Warren issued the following statement in response:

"With the defeat of the Specter Amendment to the Military Commissions Act, Congress has sacrificed any semblance of a meaningful balance of power. Congress is now rubber-stamping a bill that was written by the President which gives the President expansive power to detain without judicial oversight. If the Military Commissions Act is passed, it will grant the President the privilege of kings, allowing him to imprison any critics as alleged 'enemy combatants,' never to see the inside of a court room or to have the chance to challenge their detention or their treatment. What would we say if another country passed a law making it legal to snatch U.S. citizens and detain them indefinitely?

"Under this legislation, our clients at Guantánamo and hundreds of others detained by the U.S. around the world may remain locked up for the rest of their lives without ever having a chance to prove their innocence. Congress will be forfeiting one of the founding principles of the democratic tradition, and one of the most basic checks on executive power. Since the nation's founding, the writ has been suspended only four times-each only briefly and in a territory that was an active combat zone. This bill would suspend it for all non-citizens inside or outside of the U.S. - even if they have not been charged with any crime. This unprecedented and expansive suspension of habeas corpus is utterly unconstitutional, and we will challenge it."

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