RESTORE HABEAS CORPUS. NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY, WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT
WE SAY!

http://www.millionphonemarch.com/habeas.htm

With virtually no advance notice the Republican majority in the
Senate approved a last minute amendment to the Defense Authorization
Act to deny U.S. courts jurisdiction to examine the legality of
detainee detention in Guantanamo and elsewhere.

They did this in defiance of the not yet completely packed Supreme
Court (another reason to reject Alito), whose authority they would
annul.

This is all despite the well-known FACT that many scooped up into
these hell holes of torture are not terrorists at all, some even
having been sold for bounty. Senator Bingaman immediately responded
with a proposed corrective amendment (S.AMDT.2517) to restore
jurisdiction. Is our government telling us that there is no possible
way any of those people can be convicted of a crime, by even an
American jury, if they were to have a fair trial? We also know that
our own military attorneys were fired for protesting because the
tribunals already established were such miscarriages of justice.

Tell your Senators to SUPPORT Bingaman Amendment 2517!

You can call your members of Congress right now on one of these toll-
free numbers, 888-818-6641 or 888-355-3588. There are operators on
duty 24 hours a day. Just ask to be connected to your senators and
they'll put you through. If you don't know who they all are, or want
all their direct phone and fax numbers, just submit the simple form
on the right, to get all their numbers right down to their district
offices, right here on this page:

If there is nobody in detention who can be convicted of anything
without special kangaroo courts, then the real terrorists have indeed
won, for we will then have abdicated all moral authority. Please
contact your senators at once to tell them to support the Bingaman
amendment. Won't you click a mouse one time to send your personal
message now?

If you want to make sure your message gets through, the one click
form below will send your personal message to both your senators, on
the subject, "Support Bingaman Amendment 2517 (habeas corpus for
detainees)." At the same time you can send your personal comments
only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper
if you like.

SUBMIT THIS ACTION FORM TO CONTACT ALL YOUR CONGRESSPEOPLE & YOUR
LOCAL PAPER AT ONCE:

http://www.millionphonemarch.com/habeas.htm
~~~~
Once again we have to look across the pond for news
in our own government.
====
FireDogLake:

The Importance of Habeas: A Personal Plea

On Saturday, I attempted to explain the importance of habeas corpus
to the foundations of our legal system and our founding philosophy of
government.

But compared to this editorial in today's WaPo, I failed completely.
This editorial is a must read, and I mean that...

It is written by an attorney lifting the heavy load of pro bono legal
representation of a man currently held in Guantanimo -- and already
declared to be innocent of all potential charges -- is as clear a
statement of why habeas protections must be upheld as you will find
anywhere. And why we all need to raise our voices as loudly as
possible to our representatives about this issue.

Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military
says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda,
not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The
Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down
on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the
hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight
months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one
thing: habeas corpus.

Only habeas corpus got Adel a chance to tell a federal judge what had
happened. Only habeas corpus revealed that it wasn't just Adel who
was innocent -- it was Abu Bakker and Ahmet and Ayoub and Zakerjain
and Sadiq -- all Guantanamo "terrorists" whom the military has found
innocent.

Every single Senator who voted for Lindsey Graham's hideous
abomination of habeas restraint ought to be forced to go down to
Guantanimo and explain to this innocent man why he is being held --
still -- by a government that publicly mouths the word freedom and
wags its finger at the rest of the world, all the while stomping on
the Constitution and all of the men and women who fought so hard to
enact it. For shame.

In a wiser past, we tried Nazi war criminals in the sunlight. Summing
up for the prosecution at Nuremberg, Robert Jackson said that "the
future will never have to ask, with misgiving: 'What could the Nazis
have said in their favor?' History will know that whatever could be
said, they were allowed to say. . . . The extraordinary fairness of
these hearings is an attribute of our strength."

The world has never doubted the judgment at Nuremberg. But no one
will trust the work of these secret tribunals.

Mistakes are made: There will always be Adels. That's where courts
come in. They are slow, but they are not beholden to the defense
secretary, and in the end they get it right. They know the good guys
from the bad guys. Take away the courts and everyone's a bad guy.
Stand up and be counted. For Adel. For my child.

For every other child in America. For every person who holds human
rights to be important, and not just a hollow phrase we throw out to
nations we want to publicly shame. Stand up and demand that our deeds
match the words we claim to honor in our Constitution.

Stand up for the right of law to triumph over the whims of King
George.

TalkLeft has more. They have been on top of this issue from day one,
and have some great information on the habeas issue.

UPDATE: Grab your blood pressure meds before reading further. The
Graham Amendment was passed...after only one hour of debate. One hour
was all the Senate could spare to talk about suspending habeas corpus
for people in our custody, for backhanding the Constitution and
ignoring our international treaty obligations and the long line of
history sustaining the rule of law. One f*cking hour.

ThinkProgress has the story, major hat tip to them for putting this
up. (And a personal note, I rarely swear on these pages, but I am
furious, so I apologize to the non-swearing among us.)

UPDATE #2: Sen. Bingaman is speaking on behalf of his amendment to
repeal the Graham abomination on the Senate floor right now on C-
Span2. If you haven't called your Senators, please do so.
Now.Bingaman Disappointed by Senate's Rejection of Plan to Study Use
of Torture on Prisoners

Contact:
Jude McCartin
Maria Najera
703 Hart Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5521

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate today rejected a proposal to create an
independent commission to investigate policies and practices related
to alleged abuse of detainees. U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman voted to
create the commission, which would have had to report to Congress on
its findings and make recommendations.

``The current practice of holding detainees or prisoners
indefinitely, without affording them basic due process rights, has
been widely criticized in this country and throughout the world. For
a country such as ours that has consistently advocated for the rule
of law, the policies of the current administration are nothing short
of a major embarrassment," said Bingaman, a cosponsor of the
amendment.

``How we handle prisoners can have a dramatic impact on how our own
men and women are treated in the event they are themselves taken
prisoner," he added.

Specifically, the commission would have been asked to study what
policies our nation should have with regard to detaining prisoners,
what rights detainees should have, and what laws apply.

Mr. Alito will continue the Bush Regime's effort to destroy our
Constitution. He must not be allowed to sit on the Supreme Court of
the United States of America.

Sen. Graham's latest violation of the Constitution and his oath and
the protections it is supposed to offer American citizens is vile
beyond words.

From The Guardian:

"Its effects are likely to be devastating: the permanent removal of
almost all legal rights from 'war on terror' detainees at Guantanamo
Bay and every other similar US facility on foreign or American
soil." It is a Pastor Neimoller moment - First they came for them,
then they came for me.

What I can't understand is why it has not been picked up on until
now... and why was it virtually ignored until The Guardian published
their article?

I feel like I'm in Bizarro World. Every single thing about this just
blows my mind. They can't "reverse" the SC by passing a law Only a
Constitutional amendment can do that. At least, that was always my
understanding of the whole concept of judicial review?

This reverses a Supreme Court decision! As soon as I heard we were
building at Gitmo, I knew we were all in trouble. Seems as though
there are no lengths these people won't go to to have their
way.http://www.millionphonemarch.com/cgi-bin/action3.cgiI am sickened
by Sen. Graham's attempt to destroy the Constitution. Nullify a
Supreme Court opinion ?? It is now OK to compare the Repukes to
Hitler everything Hitler did was legal too.

People seem to forget that tiny little important fact and the all
too deadly implications of such a fact. Hitler and his government
created the laws that made their actions (what others would call
crimes) legal in Germany.

This tears it. Any Supreme Court would immediately strike this down
as a prima facie violation of the 14th Amendment. The arrogance, the
malignancy, the SHAME. This is not my country.

5th Amendment does not specify "citizen