As Gillon noted in an
earlier diary, the Graham Amendment passed yesterday. It strips all Guantanamo detainees of the right to habeas corpus. It does allow the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to hear claims from them, but those claims are
very, very limited.
Specifically: all the court gets to consider is whether or not the Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for the detainee in question met the standards set out for such hearings by the Secretary of Defense. It does not get to consider such issues as: whether those standards are themselves legal or Constitutional. Nor does it allow a detainee who has been determined to be innocent, but who has not been released, to ask the Court to order that he be set free: if the CSRT that found him innocent acted in accordance with its own standards, then the Court cannot consider such further details as whether he has in fact set free. And don't think this can't happen: there are detainees in Guantanamo who have been cleared, but who are still in custody. An example is described here.
But the good news is: We can still do something about this.
Sen. Bingaman has an amendment which will strike the jurisdiction-stripping provision of Graham's amendment (i.e., the awful part.) It should come up for a vote early next week, possibly Monday. So
please, please, call or email your
Senators, and ask them to support Bingaman's amendment to Graham's amendment to S. 1042. If you know people who live in states represented by swing Senators, get them to call too.
This has flown below the radar, for the most part. We might be able to turn it around if we can swing enough Senators. So please help; and recommend this diary if you feel so inclined. Thanks.
Our country should never be the sort of place where the Secretary of Defense can just drop someone into a legal black hole, where the laws cannot reach, and whence there is no appeal. And we should not tolerate attempts to turn it into such a place. We claim to be a nation of laws; habeas corpus is one of the foundations of those laws, and it is too precious, and too important to the country we want to be, for us to throw it away.
(Cross-posted, more or less, at Obsidian Wings.)
Collins (ME) T: (202) 224-2523 F: (202) 224-2693
Dewine (OH) T: (202) 224-2315 F: (202) 224-6519
Mccain (AZ) T: (202) 224-2235 F: (202) 228-2862
Snowe (ME) T: (202) 224-5344 F: (202) 224-1946
Warner (VA) T: (202) 224-2023 F: (202) 224-6295
Hagel (NE ) T: (202) 224-4224 F: (202) 224-5213
Conrad (D Nd)T: (202) 224-2043 F: (202) 224-7776
Landrieu (D LA) T: (202)224-5824 F: (202) 224-9735
Lieberman (D CT) T: (202) 224-4041 F: (202) 224-9750
Nelson (D NEB) T: (202) 224-6551 F: (202) 228-0012
Wyden (D OR) T: (202) 224-5244 F: (202) 228-2717