Position on Habeas Corpus

On Thursday, November 10, 2005, the day before we, as a nation, stand together to honor the veterans who have fought to preserve our freedoms and liberties, the Republican Senate, including Senators Snowe and Collins, voted to deny the most fundamental freedom of all, the right to habeas corpus.

Habeas corpus is not an abstract legal theory. It literally means to produce the body so that a Court can inquire as to whether there are good grounds to continue to hold the person who has been detained. Our forbearers considered it an essential right to prevent tyranny.

This nation was founded upon the precept that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We did not say that some men are endowed with certain inalienable rights. We did not say only Americans are endowed with certain inalienable rights. We did not say that only those that we like are endowed with certain inalienable rights. We said "all men" meaning all men and women. In doing so we established our pre-eminence as a leader among nations. We vowed that we would govern our actions by the rule of law, even when it meant giving the protections of our law to those who are our enemies.

There have been a number of instances when the crimes against the world have been prosecuted by those with authority on the International Stage. The Nuremberg Tribunal following WWII is one such occasion. There, the Allies, after the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany held trials of those who had terrorized a world. The prosecution allowed both evidence and witnesses to be presented for, and against the accused. Counsel was provided to all who were tried. After one of the most intolerable instances of human rights abuses ever recorded, the Allies chose justice over coarse cries for vengeance. Though, even Winston Churchill declared, "the Nazis should just be put up against a wall and shot," we, as a people, have recognized that our unique place in history is to stand as a beacon to justice and the rule of law. Giving voice to that sentiment was Justice Roberts, a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who renounced his position to act as the chief representative of the United States at the Tribunals. He noted,"That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason." He might have gone on to say that it is a testament to the triumph of the American way over tyranny and hate.

Some argue that the needs of the modern security concerns demand additional safeguards to protect sources and methods, or that a trial of these individuals would amount to no more than spectacle and serve no deterrent to future attacks, or that witnesses would not come forward for fear of retribution. Others argue the World Trade Center, reduced to ravaged ruins, demands retribution. Retribution devoid of the rule of law or rights for the accused, leaving the results of a trial as foregone conclusions and the only issue at trial being the date of the executions. The advocates of this course of action believe nothing less than the absolute defeat of the bin Laden organization is their stated goal and to achieve that, they are willing to remove the usual considerations, eliminating Habeas Corpus, and suspending the "Rule of Law." In doing so, they allow Terrorists to win. They have given up that which we hold most dear out of fear.

If history has shown us anything, and the objective of the Bush Administration is to truly defeat bin Laden and others like him, so as not to allow him to recruit many new generations of martyrs to his misguided cause, then bin Laden must be defeated under the framework we have set ourselves as Americans, "The Constitution of the United States of America". Those rights laid out at such risk and cost by our forbearers and preserved by the blood of our Armed Forces across the world can not be cavalierly discarded as inconvenient or irrelevant when it suits the administration. The proposed tribunals express neither the National Sovereignty of the United States nor the will of the people. As proposed by this administration, they lack the moral authority to be called Justice under our system of laws. Lacking fairness, they seek only a show of "vengeance," reducing our great nation to a spectacle more reminiscent of the Roman coliseums than our halls of Justice.

It is that diminishment of the freedoms that our Veterans have fought for which makes the Republican Senate's vote to deny habeas corpus so offensive on the day before Veterans Day. In his address after the battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln noted that "we Americans owe a debt to our Veterans who have given the last full measure so that we may enjoy the freedoms they fought for." This Administration dishonors their sacrifice when it takes away the most essential right; the right to stand before Justice and be heard.

Let there be no mistake, we Americans will fight to guarantee the preservation of those fundamental freedoms upon which this nation was founded. However, once the case has been proven against those terrorists and saboteurs who would subvert our nation, and our freedoms, they will meet with the sternest measure of our resolve.