I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover Find Habeas, an ACLU-sponsored blog following the efforts to restore habeas corpus rights to their rightful place here in the US. (and yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. A proud one.) It’s an excellent place to get an overview of the issues, and of the work being done in Congress and elsewhere to draw us back from the dark, strange place we’ve ended up.
I disagree with many things we’ve done in response to September 11th. From early days, however, I’ve thought the Guantanamo prison, the legal contortions invented to justify it, and the attendant damage done to our rights in this country, the notion of what is allowable, and to our standing in the international community have done the most damage. Beyond anything else we’ve done, domestically or internationally, this has hurt our country. This will be judged by history, and not kindly.
(Note: by no means am I justifying or minimizing the invasion of Iraq, the Abu Ghraib abuse, the PATRIOT Act, etc. by making this choice. All horrible; it’s simply a matter of something going on top, though. In addition, I strongly believe that Guantanamo started us down a slippery slope
, making tragedies like Abu Ghraib far more likely. That’s why you have to hold the line sometimes.)
I agree with Christy Hardin Smith; we are better than this as a nation. We can fix this. We have to fix this.
A couple of great starter links from Find Habeas:
