Gonzales: â??There Is No Express Grant of Habeas Corpus In The Constitutionâ??

mmmm, i can smell the new freedom of dictatorship...this will show those evil muslims that are converting us and hating our freedom!

Gonzales: â??There Is No Express Grant of Habeas Corpus In The Constitutionâ??

Yesterday, during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed there is no express right to habeas corpus in the U.S. Constitution. Gonzales was debating Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) about whether the Supreme Courtâ??s ruling on Guantanamo detainees last year cited the constitutional right to habeas corpus. Gonzales claimed the Court did not cite such a right, then added, â??There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.â?�
Specter pushed back. â??Wait a minute. The constitution says you canâ??t take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesnâ??t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?â?� Specter told Gonzales, â??You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.â?� Watch it:

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As McJoan noted, the right of habeas corpus is clear in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Contitution: â??The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.â?�
Digg It!


Full transcript:

SPECTER: Where you have the Constitution having an explicit provision that the writ of habeas corpus cannot be suspended except for rebellion or invasion, and you have the Supreme Court saying that habeas corpus rights apply to Guantanamo detainees â?? aliens in Guantanamo â?? after an elaborate discussion as to why, how can the statutory taking of habeas corpus â?? when thereâ??s an express constitutional provision that it canâ??t be suspended, and an explicit Supreme Court holding that it applies to Guantanamo alien detainees.

GONZALES: A couple things, Senator. I believe that the Supreme Court case youâ??re referring to dealt only with the statutory right to habeas, not the constitutional right to habeas.

SPECTER: Well, youâ??re not right about that. Itâ??s plain on its face they are talking about the constitutional right to habeas corpus. They talk about habeas corpus being guaranteed by the Constitution, except in cases of an invasion or rebellion. They talk about John Runningmeade and the Magna Carta and the doctrine being imbedded in the Constitution.

GONZALES: Well, sir, the fact that they may have talked about the constitutional right to habeas doesnâ??t mean that the decision dealt with that constitutional right to habeas.

SPECTER: When did you last read the case?

GONZALES: It has been a while, but Iâ??ll be happy to â?? I will go back and look at it.

SPECTER: I looked at it yesterday and this morning again.

GONZALES: I will go back and look at it. The fact that the Constitution â?? again, there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But itâ??s never been the case, and Iâ??m not a Supreme â??

SPECTER: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The constitution says you canâ??t take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesnâ??t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?

GONZALES: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesnâ??t say, â??Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.â?� It doesnâ??t say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by â??

SPECTER: You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.

GONZALES: Um.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pisshead

mmmm, i can smell the new freedom of dictatorship...this will show those evil muslims that are converting us and hating our freedom!

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Just think Pissy Under shiria law we would be like this guy.....

Freedoms they hate.....

Religon
speech
press

CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian blogger went on trial Thursday on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife with his Internet writings.
It was Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger, and it came as Washington has backed away from pressuring Egypt to improve its human rights record and bring democratic reform.
The defendant, Abdel Kareem Nabil, often denounced Islamic authorities and criticized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his Arabic-language blog. He has been in detention since November and faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.
Egypt has arrested a string of pro-democracy bloggers over the past year, sparking condemnation from human rights groups.Nabil's trial in Alexandria began two days after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Mubarak, seeking support for a new U.S. strategy on calming violence in Iraq. But unlike past visits to Egypt when she pressed demands for greater democracy, Rice made no reference to reform. Instead she praised the two countries' "important strategic relationship -- one that we value greatly."
In court Thursday, Nabil was charged with inciting sedition, insulting Islam, harming national unity and insulting the president, a court official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of court rules.
Other bloggers have been detained and released without charges. They concentrated on politics, unlike Nabil, who wrote often on religion. In his blog Nabil was a fierce critic of conservative Muslims and in particularly of al-Azhar University, one of the most prestigious religious institutions in the Sunni Muslim world, where he was a law student.
He was thrown out of the university in March, and in his last blog entry before his arrest blamed al-Azhar for pushing the government to investigate him.
His blog can be found here, though most of it is in Arabic. There is also an English-language site in support of him, FreeKareem.org.

Hey Bong, You forgot Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Edie Amin, come on now, this is America. I thought you were all for individual rights, like being able to confront your accuser and have the evidence against you provided to you in a court of law with representation on your behalf.. This is not Stalinist Russia, at least not yet! I believe that is the meaning of Habeas Corpus.

yes, it's called due process, and freedom...the neo-cons have been told that aids terrorism...so we've got to get rid of the constitution to fight the terrorists who hate freedom...

welcome to 1984.

but when you get down to it...some people are afraid of the level of freedom the constitution provides, so they need to feel good about themselves and do away with it, only a little bit though...we've been doing away with it bit by bit for a looooong time...and those bits have added up...

when people start to recognize the bits because it happens to them or their neighbor or their friends or their family and it's impossible to ignore it...then you get a revolution...

and then the cycle starts over.