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Friday, June 15, 2007

Happy Birthday Habeus Corpus, Wherever You Are

June 15, 1215 marks the signing of the Magna Carta, which contained the prohibitions against unlawful imprisonment that eventually were codified into the Great Writ of habeas corpus. And so, Habeus is arguably 792 years old today.

The ACLU wants you to send Habeus a birthday greeting. Here's more from the ACLU's Habeus resources:
Habeas got one early birthday present this week, when a federal court said the Bush administration cannot indefinitely imprison a U.S. resident on suspicion alone. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals called for a writ of habeas corpus directing the Pentagon to either charge Qatari national Ali al-Marri in the civilian court system, deport him, hold him as a material witness or release him.

This decision is a repudiation of the Bush administration and policies like the Military Commissions Act [which a Republican-controlled Congress, to its enduring shame, allowed our Rogue President to sign into law on October 17, 2006], and it shows that our system of laws is stronger than the misguided strategies of an overreaching executive branch.

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