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Originally posted by steve99
Heres an interesting article. It seems Clinton wanted to what Bush said tp be doing now.
www.nationalreview.com.../york/york200512200946.asp
[edit on 29-5-2006 by steve99]
Lincoln's Crackdown
Suspects jailed. No charges filed. Sound familiar?
By David Greenberg
Posted Friday, Nov. 30, 2001, at 11:58 AM ET
Civil libertarians are crying foul over the indefinite detention of hundreds of Sept. 11 suspects and plans to try accused terrorists in military tribunals. In defense, some Bush administration loyalists cite another wartime leader who locked up civilians and resorted to army courts, Abraham Lincoln—even though Lincoln faced a radically different situation, and, more important, his civil liberties record stands as a rare blot on his reputation.
In his authoritative Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (1991), Mark Neely has argued that during the Civil War these two policies—summary arrests and military justice—were of a piece. Both stemmed from the emergency of having an armed rebellion in the nation's midst, and they were viewed as two parts of a single policy. Yet today we think of the policies as separate, if related. So this week I'll consider Lincoln's more famous action, his suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Next week, I'll tackle what at the time was considered the more egregious violation, the use of military tribunals to prosecute civilians.
First a definition: The Latin phrase habeas corpus means "you have the body." The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus refers to a common-law tradition that establishes a person's right to appear before a judge before being imprisoned. When a judge issues the writ, he commands a government official to bring a prisoner before the court so he can assess the legality of the prisoner's detention. When the privilege of the writ is suspended, the prisoner is denied the right to secure such a writ and therefore can be held without trial indefinitely. Habeas corpus is the only common-law tradition enshrined in the Constitution, which also explicitly defines when it can be overridden. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution says, "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."
Originally posted by rotgeist
Bush is just an extreme example of what's been going on forever. An examplar of problems with the US: militarism, hegemonic foreign policy, arrogance, corporate dominance, nepotism, ad nauseam. We can elect people less odious but its all the same thing. I hate how people of the so called "liberal" persuasion think that everything would be fine if we didn't have bush: BS.
Also might I add I am a left winger myself.