Habeas Corpus, Round Two

Well this week has kept the Patriot very busy, what with Anna Nicole’s will, Britney’s hair shaving escapades and the idea of tire-sized calamari rings from a giant squid found off the coast of Australia, not to mention the second round of American Idol. While America distracts itself with this meaningless blather, the Bush administration won a major victory in Federal Court when a U.S. appeals court Tuesday threw out the legal claims brought on behalf of the hundreds of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and ruled that they do not have a right to plead their innocence in an American court. In a particularly disingenuous 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District held that the Constitution does not extend the right of habeas corpus to noncitizens who are held outside the sovereign territory of this country. "Cuba -- not the United States -- has sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay," wrote Judge Raymond Randolph. I’m sure this will be news to the Cuban government; I wonder if they’re measuring for drapes and picking out furniture? Shayana Kadidal, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York noted quite accurately that, "This decision empowers the president to do whatever he wishes to prisoners without any legal limitation, so long as he does it offshore. (It) encourages such notorious practices as extraordinary rendition and contempt for international human rights law." Not that the Bush administration was ever troubled by contempt for international law. However, now that the elections are behind them, several Democratic senators have said they will amend the Military Commissions Act to restore the traditional right to habeas corpus for all. Their efforts would face an almost certain veto by the President Bush and it is doubtful that 2/3rds of the senate can be marshaled to override it.