President Bush's newest vocabulary words are habeas corpus. He probably can't pronounce it, he definitely can't spell it and he might not even know what it means, but one thing is clear — he's gotten rid of it.
Last week Bush signed what resembles an unconstitutional bill "in memory of the victims of September the 11th." The bill creates new rules for prosecuting and interrogating terrorism suspects, and he tagged it as "a way to deliver justice to the terrorists we have captured."
As if using the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a ploy to gain support isn't bad enough, the law will take away the legal rights of anyone suspected of being a terrorist. That means it will prevent detainees from going to court to challenge their confinement, disallow the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear petitions from noncitizens for writs of habeas corpus and will allow evidence to be withheld from defendants. None of this is justifiable.
Not only does the legislation go against the notion of being "innocent until proven guilty," it gives Bush the green light to decide both what constitutes torture and who is an "enemy combatant."
The United States should hold itself to the highest moral standards and be able to adequately justify the arrest and prosecution of anyone and should not do it secretly. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen was shipped off to Syria — one place where the United States used to outsource torture, though there's no need for that now — and was later exonerated by Canadian authorities. His story is not unique in the world of Bush's never-ending war on terror and because of potential missteps like this one, government actions must be reviewed.
Our government is set up with a system of checks and balances for a reason. This law would allow the executive branch to go unchecked. It is understandable that our government wants to address terrorism as an evil worth fighting, but it is not OK to do so while taking away other American rights and disallowing the public from being aware of our government's actions.
With midterm elections less than two weeks away, it's logical that our president wants to divert the attention of the American public away from the deteriorating Republican Party and back onto his only stronghold: the war on terror, but habeas-stripping isn't the way to go. He's already got Democrats on Capitol Hill disagreeing with the bill and people dressed in orange jumpsuits like the ones worn by Guantanamo Bay detainees gathered outside the White House during the bill signing to protest.
From domestic wiretapping to electronic monitoring, Bush has made it a priority to take away civil rights — and not just from those deemed "enemy combatants." This time it's habeas corpus, but what's next?
