Chris Dodd: The Fight to Restore Habeas Corpus

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CANDIDATE SERIES: Chris Dodd
The Fight to Restore Habeas Corpus
expert guest post by Senator Chris Dodd
Democratic candidate for president
VIDEO: Chris Dodd Habeaus Corpus

First, thank you for providing me with the opportunity to share my views with your readers Taylor. When offered a chance to guest blog here on any subject, the choice of subject was easy: restoring the Constitution. I've said it before but the issue is too important to not repeat here: I pledge that if elected I will restore the Constitution of the United States in my first hour in office. I won't wait until then to take action and I'm committed to leading to restore the Constitution from my place in the Senate. This week I am working with my colleague Patrick Leahy to restore habeas corpus and I'll need your help.

But first I want to tell you why the Constitution is something that I value so dearly and why I'm making restoring it a central part of my campaign for the presidency.

I was raised in a household were the rule of law was treated as the most important issue facing a government (my father, Thomas Dodd, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials). Every day, I carry with me a copy of the Constitution of United States, given to me twenty-six years ago by my colleague Robert Byrd. And yet today, I am running for President on a platform of restoring the Constitution. I had never dreamed that the day would come when a candidate for our nation's highest office would have to campaign on restoring the balance of powers, the rule of law set forth in our most cherished document.

Yet here I am. Here we are.

Last fall the Congress passed what I believe is the most harmful piece of legislation since I first took office in 1976, the Military Commissions Act. It allows evidence obtained through torture to be used in trial, denies 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.

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