Restoring America's Standing in the World and Security Begins with Restoring Constitution, Habeas Co

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-dodd/restoring-americas-stand_b_51114.html

Restoring America's Standing in the World and Security Begins with Restoring Constitution, Habeas Corpus
Chris Dodd

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Indeed, one of the saddest days in my 26-year career in the Senate occurred last fall when the Congress passed the Military Commissions Act (MCA), allowing evidence obtained through torture to be admitted into evidence, denying individuals the right to counsel, the right to invoke the Geneva Conventions. Indeed, with passage of the MCA, Congress removed the single most important and effective safeguard of liberty man has known:

The right of habeas corpus, permitting prisoners to be brought before court to determine whether their detainment is lawful.

In removing habeas corpus protections, the MCA affirmed vengeance as a tool in fighting terrorism - discarding sixty years of precedent and respect for the rule of law.

My father served as Executive Trial Counsel under Chief Prosecutor and Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, which set a high standard for moral authority and rule of law in the 20th Century. Trials were far from the obvious choice following World War Two and the extermination of 10 million people - and vengeance was an understandable reaction.

Churchill wanted to promptly shoot the Nazi leaders. Stalin wanted show trials - and then to shoot them. And many legal scholars argued there was no court or precedent under which to try them.

The parallels with the situation we find ourselves in today are chilling - today we see an Administration that too often uses the law and its advocates not to uphold justice but to undermine it, enlisting attorneys to weaken laws and agencies that protect citizens here at home and our men and women in uniform abroad.

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