Habeas corpus is a legal term. In short, it gives anyone being imprisoned the right to appear before a court, the proceedings held to determine the legality of that person's imprisonment. The concept and application of habeas corpus, though not formally in name until later, predates the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. It is a cornerstone of English law, and was adopted also by our founding fathers as a cornerstone of our own legal system. It is the foundation of such heretofore assured rights under the Constitution as the right to arraignment/preliminary hearing when arrested, the right to legal counsel, and the right against unlawful detention. Earlier this week, with a simple signature, Bush II undermined this fundamental ideal that has existed for the better part of a millenium. In signing into law the Military Commissions Act, this administration has made it possible for anyone...ANYONE, U.S. citizen or otherwise, to be detained indefinitely, without recourse to the courts, or to legal counsel...to be subjected to any means of interrogation the President deems fit. All it takes is a rubber stamp of approval from an appointed committee to say that any given person is an "unlawful enemy combatant." And just like that, someone can disappear, akin to the fate of the desaparecidos under Pinoche's regime, and countless others who have disappeared at the whim of their governments under regimes that, until recently, were so alien to the American way that it seemed unthinkable such could ever be the case in this nation. The unthinkable has now arrived. These are dark times, my fellow citizens. I hate to put it so bluntly, but the terrorists who struck a blow against us on that sorrowful day in September now seem to have won. What they despised so vehemently, our way of life, our freedoms, well, they are sliding down the slippery slope as we speak, into the morass of potential abuse and injustice. Our founding fathers labored to create a system that was insulated from the absolute power of one man, and the abuses that seem inherent ot anyone having such power, a system that could be "run by devils" and still work to protect its citizens from such abuses of power as are now made possible. It seems the devils were more clever in the end. "If my thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine..." -Bob Dylan
