When George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act last fall, constitutional scholars noted that the new law prevents detainees from challenging their confinement at Guantanamo Bay and that this was one of the rare moments in U.S. history that Habeas Corpus was suspended. Habeas Corpus is a latin term that summarizes the procedure by which prisoners can challenge their confinement. If the confinement is illegal, say they got the wrong guy or you received an unfair trial, a judge can grant your Habeas petition. Without the right of Habeas Corpus, you have no freedom because you can be locked up for no reason and there will be no recourse.
Today's Associated Press article about a court ruling in Washington D.C. shows the impact of the Military Commissions Act. The court ruled that Gitmo prisoners can forget about challenging their confinements. The problem with this is that our detention centers at Gitmo and elsewhere have swept up people who were not terrorists and who shouldn't be there. More on that issue here. They have no rights at all.
Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision of a law at the center of President Bush's anti-terrorism plan.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.
Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.
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The Military Commissions Act was crafted in response to that decision and the president hailed it as a necessary tool for bringing terror suspects to justice.
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But the most criticized provision of the law was the one stripping U.S. courts of the authority to hear arguments from detainees who said they were being held illegally.
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U.S. citizens and foreigners being held inside the country normally have the right to contest their detention before a judge. The Justice Department said foreign enemy combatants are not protected by the Constitution.
Conservatives hate the teacher's unions because unions represent the only bulwark against an oppressive employer, and conservatives pretend that these unions care more about teacher salaries than classroom learning. Every teacher that I know cares about the students. And last I checked, the teachers union did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center. Fox News invites guest analysts who say the teachers are worse than mass killers. So what does this mean? Should the teacher's union be sent to Gitmo? Put it this way: if they are rounded up for no reason and flown to Gitmo, they have no rights at all.
