Peter Krupa

So imagine you were just arrested by a foreign government for something you didn’t do. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time - these things happen. You get arrested and put in prison and your family is not notified and you think, “Hey, I didn’t do this!” and so you want to appeal to a judge. But when you express this desire to your jailer he just laughs at you. “Appeal to a judge,” he chuckles, “that’s a good one,” and he slams the door.

Four years later, you’re still in prison, and you still didn’t do it.

As an American, you should be shocked and appalled. One of the greatest traditions of Western law has just been violated: habeas corpus, the right prisoners have had, since the Magna Carta, to appeal an unjust imprisonment. This is the part of the blog where I normally start ripping into Cuba, but unfortunately, depending on a Senate vote on the so-called “compromise” bill to deal with terrorists, it is US law that could be amended with the following text:

`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.’.

(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.

Basically, it says if we’ve gotcha, sorry, you’re fucked. Not only that, but this is retroactive, so if we got you before and fucked you, you’re still fucked, and we’re not even sorry for shipping you off to Syria where you were tortured, or holding you without trial for several years of your life.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is part of the so-called “compromise” between the Bush People and the Other People (full text). It is indeed a compromise: It compromises our international standing as a decent country, and compromises our troops’ safety should they fall into enemy hands.

As an American, I’m not really happy with this. Unfortunately, most of the House of Representatives was (including 34 Democrats) so they merrily voted to make it law. Today, we await the Senate’s decision.

This is bad. Very, very, very bad…

UPDATE: The Senate has rejected a change to the bill that would have taken out the suspension of habeas corpus part. This is very, very bad.