If you don’t know the
If you don’t know the name Yaser Esam Hamdi, you soon will. He was in court today to determine whether the right of Habeas Corpus, first granted to a few English nobles in the fields of Runnymede in 1215 and guaranteed by the constitution to all US citizens, will now be taken away by the Bush Administration’s cavalier definition of an :”enemy combatant”. The NYT reports on the federal judiciary playing their role as one of the main bulwarks of liberty:
“I have no desire to have an enemy combatant get out,” the judge said. “But due process requires something other than a declaration by someone named Mobbs that he should be held incommunicado. Isn’t that what we’re fighting for?”
The Bush Administration, and especially every single Justice Department lawyer who taken part in this case, should be ashamed. History will look on them exactly as we do on the Japanese internments.