Hooray... Habeas

Sanity, or at least a modicum of it, returned to this country yesterday as the SCOTUS overturned Article 7 the heinous MCA of 2006. Habeas is restored and once again we are a somewhat civilized nation governed by the Rule of Law as the Framers designed.

McCain and Graham were the chief architects of the Military Commissions Act abomination and along with Bush, should be in the Hague and no where near Pennsylvania Avenue.

Glenn Greenwald, who has been a tireless advocate for the repudiation of this 'Act' sums it up succinctly:

"The Court's ruling was grounded in its recognition that the guarantee of habeas corpus was so central to the Founding that it was one of the few individual rights included in the Constitution even before the Bill of Rights was enacted. As the Court put it: "the Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom." The Court noted that freedom from arbitrary or baseless imprisonment was one of the core rights established by the 13th Century Magna Carta, and it is the writ of habeas corpus which is the means for enforcing that right. Once habeas corpus is abolished -- as the Military Commissions Act sought to do -- then we return to the pre-Magna Carta days where the Government is free to imprison people with no recourse."

This was a good day for America...