Tauscher urged to restore habeas corpus for enemy combatants

MediaNews via CoCoTimes ^ | 5/10/7 | Josh Richman

[SmithL]

An East Bay congresswoman will co-sponsor a forthcoming bill that would restore a time-honored civil liberty curbed last year by an anti-terrorism law.

Rumors began circulating through dozens of blogs Tuesday that the House Armed Services Committee might add into the huge Department of Defense Authorization Act a section restoring the right of habeas corpus to noncitizen prisoners detained by the government as unlawful enemy combatants, such as those now held in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Habeas corpus essentially is the right to be brought to court for a determination of whether one is imprisoned lawfully, and whether one should be released.

It dates at least back to 12th-century England, and the U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 9 says it "shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."

But under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, unlawful enemy combatants are denied that right. The Bush Administration and many Congressional Republicans believed foreign unlawful enemy combatants don't deserve that protection.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, is the Bay Area's sole voice on the Armed Services Committee, and at least one blogger -- at calitics.com -- asked readers to call her and urge her to support such a restorative amendment.

House Armed Services Committee spokeswoman Loren Dealy said Wednesday no such amendment is coming because chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., Advertisement cares so deeply about the issue that he's drafting a separate bill to deal with this alone.

And Tauscher will be an original cosponsor of that bill when Skelton brings it forth as early as next week, Tauscher spokesman Kevin Lawlor said Wednesday.

Bloggers at a few big sites -- including dailykos.com and myDD.com -- said the issue should've been written into the bigger bill as a matter of principle and urged readers to maintain pressure on committee members.

[SmithL]

And America's enemies do appreciate her support.

[EagleUSA]

Yes, America’s external and internal enemies take good care of each other, don’t they??

[saganite]

I wasn’t aware that enemy combatants ever had the right of Habeas Corpus.

[wastedyears]

We need Duncan Hunter and we need him NOW.

[ClearCase_guy]

Terrorists, and enemy soldiers who fight without identification are not protected by the US Constitution, nor by the Geneva Convention.

They are only protected by the Democrats.

[yankeedame]

Why, oh why, does it seem so many of these screwballs are women? (sigh)

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

They just make this crap up out of whole cloth. If thse fool had been in power in the 1940’s, we would all be speaking German today.

[oakcon]

I would make some pithy comment but I think I’ll just put my visceral and immediate reaction.

G-D NO

[DJ Elliott]

I wasn’t aware that enemy combatants ever had the right of Habeas Corpus.

They don’t. It would violate art 3 of the Geneva Convention to place POWs under US civil law.

[goodnesswins]

Okay....I’ve started a list....really, I have.....here’s two.....good ole’ Ike and Ellen.....both on the Armed Services Committee.....what traitors.

[xcamel]

Yeah, right.
Our enemies only care about “Habeas Corpses”

[xenophiles]

I wasn’t aware that enemy combatants ever had the right of Habeas Corpus. [...] It would violate art 3 of the Geneva Convention to place POWs under US civil law.

You consider them POW?

[mak5]

They didn't, which makes the "time honored" line in this article all the more laughable. In the Quirin case during World War II, the Supreme Court held that:

"…the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals."

That precedent was ignored in last year's opinion on Guantanamo.

[Griddlee]

I live in Ellen’s district.

She doesn’t pay any attention to me. I’m only one out of a dozen Republican’s in her area.

[Hoof Hearted]

"They just make this crap up out of whole cloth. If thse fool had been in power in the 1940’s, we would all be speaking German today."

Wrong! Those of us on the West Coast would be speaking Japanese!

[Bigh4u2]

“shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.”

First off, Article 1, section 9 talks about the U.S. Not foreign soil.

Secondly. Anyone caught in an act of terrorism or attempted terrorism, who is a U.S. Citizen is NOT rebelling and the ‘public safety’ is not threatened?

These people have no brains.

[SmithL]

I miss Bill Baker.

[ivyleaguebrat]

In Ex Parte Quirin the prisoners were detained on American soil on a clandestine mission of sabatoge.. Hamdan was arrested in Afghanistan. That may seem irrelevant, but it was a critical difference from Quirin for the Court, as the Geneva Common Article 3 states that in a "conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties [i.e., signatories], each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum,” certain provisions protecting “[p]ersons … placed hors de combat by … detention,” including a prohibition on “the passing of sentences … without previous judgment … by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees … recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”"

[Ieatfrijoles]

It dates at least back to 12th-century England

Josh says so.

[ivyleaguebrat]

sabotage.. duh.