So did anyone notice?

J.D.

J.D.

Active member
Staff member
No more habeus corpus, huh? Land of the free... not so much. Well, at least you're still the home of the brave; you'd have to be to live somewhere where you can be randomly tortured without trial. Sounds exciting!

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Olbermann-HabeusCorpus.wmv

Keith sheds some light on the progressive, new, post-9/11 style developments in constitutional law.
 
Actually, no. Now it applies to everyone. Sure, you can trust the government... because they sure have done such a bang-up job lately... but you no longer actually have the right to due process, fair trial, legal representation, or even to know what you supposedly did to deserve being imprisoned.
 
The constitution has gone from law to basic guideline thanks to our favorite Texan. Only two more years....

But if you want to see something funny come out of the patriot act, see if you can find a video of the senatorial debate that took place at MSU Bozeman a couple days ago. Conrad Burns calls another candidate a terrorist on live tv, it was great.
 
Yeah about that... not anymore!

Apparently you're not getting this. Everything you assumed was true about your legal rights has been completely undermined at the most basic level. Whether they continue to offer you those rights in practice is another thing altogether, but there's no longer anything that says they HAVE to.
 
Yeah, we are pretty much abandoning the whole "individual rights" thing (remember that little idea?) as the legal system is moving closer to Beaureaucratic legalism. Thats not the right direction...I don't know how many of you read legal essays/books/whatever, but Robert Kagan's book "Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law" details the characteristics of each system. Our current government is slowly causing the American legal system to have less of the characteristic advantages of our unique brand of Adversarial Legalism.

Thats just my opinion though.
 
I'm not saying this is good at all, but it was my understanding that many westerized nations dont have Habeas Corpus. Is this true, or am I full of shit?
 
And does the bill eliminate Habeas Corpus for citizens? I'm not positive, but I don't think foreigners have to be granted American civil liberties. It would still be terribly immoral if it technically were legal.
 
No no. Nothing to do with foreigners. It's just gone.

If other nations don't have it, they have something else in place to make sure that people get a fair trial.

The US doesn't.
 
it's fucking ridiculous. our judicial system isn't perfect. if new evidence comes up that could possibly prove convicted criminals their innocence, then they need to be retried. i just read up on the famous dr. sam sheppard case, and that shit is fucked. he was suspected of murdering his wife, even though all evidence told that he couldn't have done it. then these shit kickers at a major clevelend, OH newspaper drastically swayed everyone's opinion on the case because they jumped to conclusions so badly. the guy spent 10 years in prison for a crime he never committed, and it was a bitch for him to get back out of jail. the way the judges, police officials, and general public of ohio treated him made me hate people from ohio, what assholes. the guy eventually was acquitted of all charges, but he was never able to lead a normal life again, and died shortly after. way to go assholes. habeas corpus is absolutely necessary. if you need persuasion, look up the dr. sam sheppard murder case.
 
My grandfather escaped the fascists in Italy when they wanted to put him in jail with no trial. It sickens me that congress agreed to that bill, and that the government potentialy has the power to do the same thing as dictators of countries we faught against for all those years.
 
LaLaLa.gif
 
/start political incorectness

I feel like a black man in the 1800s in the New World

/end political incorectness
 
while i cannot say wether this is true or not, due to lack of information on the matter, im going to say this seems quite unlikely. Bush can get away with alot of things but how exactly would he, or congress for that matter, do something like this, and have no one, not the media, know about this? im sure bush is not dumb enough to take away those rights; he is asking for rioting and more trouble, in a time where he would probly enjoy haveing a little more support. just my thoughts on the matter
 
People in the media noticed. Did you miss that link I put up at the top? Click it. (... Maybe that top link doesn't work. Okay, here's another.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/10/olbermann-why-does-habeas-corpus-hate-america/#more-10930)

The reason it's not getting covered is because latin words like "Habeus Corpus" are confusing and relate to legal issues that don't make good TV... now, Congressmen soliciting sex from 16 year old boys? THAT's great TV.

Basically this whole thing got buried under the weight of Foley.

Go on google and search for "military commissions act 2006". There's been plenty written on it.

The reason Congress can justify it is that it's "only supposed to be used in situations involving suspected terrorists". And yet, there your rights were, and now, there they aren't.
 
no habeus corpus doesn't apply to everyone now. its part of our bill of rights, to change it they would have to change the constitution., it only applies to terror suspects
 
Australia lost it a while ago, we can now be detained without knowing why, and if we talk about it to anyone else, 8 years jail for sedition. It's kind of ironic that the Western system of law is based upon Habeas Corpus, however we no longer operate under it.
 
consittution is numero uno, the legislature or executive can in ways make "laws" but if they fly in th eface of the constitution then they are invalidated by guess who... the supreme court. separation of powers. if the court rules a "law" unconstitutional the constitution can be amended but this requires a certain number of states to ratify this amendment to the constitution. which by th etime it gets to this point someone and his administration will be well out of office, not that even if he were still in office it would be ratified.
 
You have to give people more credit sometimes. People are smarter than you think. Your also skewing the news when you say habeus corpus is gone for good without qualifying your statement at all. That last bit of information about how it only applys to suspected terrorists is pretty important. Your argument might also be more convicing if you give some examples of where a citizen was denied their right to habeus corpus because he was suspected of being a terrorist. To my knowledge, this hasnt happened yet.
 
Time for another revolution.

well now since I said that some guy from the NSA is going to come by and handcuff and hood me tomarow morning and whip me off to Gitmo, so that I can meet a bunch of nice cuban dogs and bath my head in some nice cuban water, again and again and again. Well good bye.
 
budy. I thought the same thing you did until i took a step back and realized what i was saying. I would advise you go read the actual bill because the changes only apply to "alien illigal enemy combatents" and by aliens NOT US citizens.

Also it doesn't remove habius corpus. it simply changes the trials to military tribunals. Now this blows if you are not an american and is going against the basic principles layed down in the geniva convention. but please know what you are talking about before you say something like "they are taking away my right to due process"

I don't mean to hate, because that is exactly what my english teacher said until we went and looked up the actual text to the bill
 
Habeas corpus does not technically apply to noncitizens (nor should it). That was made distinct in the Military Commissions Act that was approved by the Senate and House last month. Seems like another overblown non-issue to me...unless I was really into the international law thing which is a bit naive to begin with.
 
All this bill really did was make it easier for us to "punnish" all those terrorists we catch. thats all
 
thats flat out wrong. It is directly aimed at aliens. It doesn't effect the citizens rights to habeus corpus.
 
...so foreigners aren't entitled to due process?

Well I guess that's fair enough, but they're certainly entitled to be tried and convicted in their own country, in their own court of law, not before a foriegn military tribunal.

Already Australia has basically said that if you're a convicted terrorist, you can be detained indefinately, even if there's no charge against you. Since you have no idea why you're being held, you can't defend yourself in court. If you attempt to find out why you were detained or tell anybody, you're charged with sedition, an automatic 8 year jail term.

Now that's fucked, you guys haven't lost Habeus Corpus quite yet, but Australia certainly has.
 
This applies just to people that they suspect, plan to carry out terrorist attacks. We also have American Islamo-Fascists who are quite as willing as foreign terrorists to blow shit up, thats why there were included as well.

As long as your not planning any kind of terrorist activities you should be fine. Think of Columbine, if the kids had been stopped because of the warning signs the whole thing could have been prevented. Of course, they could not have been detained because of their rights to habeus corpus. This measure provides a way for the US government to take preventative measures in dealing with those who wish to kill others through acts of terrorism.

Its easy to say shit like "OMG like George Bush is totally stealing our rights and like the constitution plus he's like texan and now he's gonna arrest everyone for no reason!"

Grow up, you believe Bush has the ability to pass all this stuff just on his word. It all has to be passed through Congress who are the elected representatives of the people, which in turn cast votes as far as their belief in what most benefits the people of the United States.

Also look back at history, Abraham Lincoln also suspended the right to habeus corpus to those who wished harm to the Union. The copperhead politicians of the South who were deliberately trying to harm the United States were placed in prison without a trial for the period of the war. Would you disagree with this or would you rather they had remained free and continued to do harm to the war effort of the Union during the Civil War, in turn causing the deaths of thousands more men? We are at war now with a foreign enemy and an enemy within, many just fail to recognize it.
 


Good, Australia is standing up for what is right. I could give a fuck about the rights of terrorists. By becoming terrorists they have chosen to forfit their rights, no one forces them to become the scum that they are. Australians do not put up with any of that shit and they are one of the best allies America has.
 
you are still missing the point. It doesn't apply to americans UNLESS they are Funding known terror orginizations. That is it. It has nothing to do with colombine. and you say you don't give a shit how "terrorists" are treated by our government? Well naturally if america starts to take that attitude so will the nations we are fighting, so for the safety of OUR troops i sugest you think more globally. every time news about americans torturing prisoners comes out americans in other countries are killed as conciquence. It is just a fact. And what seems like terror to some is great to others. Until we accept that, we are going to see a lot more death
 
The only danger with losing Habeus Corpus is that if someone is falsely labelled a terrorist, they can't do anything about it and no one will ever know. I know the chances of this happening are slim, but still there's the possibility.
 
assuming accurate definitions of who is or isnt a terrorist, or who does or does not have some sort of probably cause to become one... is about like assuming individual rights could surive, i guess. its always just one more step until ... its not. call the patriot act step 1, call any number of subsequent changes step 2... call this step 3, then theres a 4... 10... what? then were all fucked.

but hey, why even talk about the constitution, its not like people really have the power to challenge the government anymore.
 
No matter how you put it, Columbine was a terrorist attack, not from an organized terrorist network but simply to kill and stir fear in a community because a few worthless kids couldn't fit in and they wanted revenge. The attack in Oklahoma was also domestic terrorism.

Also notice we do not treat terrorists under Geneva convention rules because they fight for no nation. Americans are being killed by Muslims who mutilate bodies and hack off heads. Our torture is nothing in comparison, but it saves the lives of American soldiers. The current Iraqi Army has only been succesful in bringing down insurgent terrorist networks through torture and humiliation of captured insurgents. By bringing down these networks they are saving thousands of lives.
 
What are you talking about, Europe has its shit together more than we do. The Euro has been doing better than the dollar for years now. I'd much rather be living Switzerland....
 
well yeah...but we're not talking about economic situations in this thread. We're talking about criminal rights and freedoms and the powers of the government to expose and eliminate potential criminals.
 
started with jesus, then jews, then pegans, then witches, then Nazis, then Commies, and now terrorists. habeas corpus has always been a way of "safeguarding an individuals freedom against arbitrary state action", but has never kept fingers from being pointed or gallows empty.
 
The US has taken various steps to lower the value of the dollar, dont worry dude its not that bad.

Switzerland is sweet though, to bad we cant live there.
 
you'll say that until you're no longer a student and 80% of your income is being taken away through taxes. granted they pay face value for goods and have MAD pensions... disregard, Switz have got it sweet.
 
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