Bingaman Amendment

Please urge your senators to vote in support of Bingaman's amendment to restore the right of Habeus Corpus for GWOT detainees. While Graham's bill stripping habeus corpus provided for other significant oversights, any erosion of this legal principle, in any context, is a dangerous precedent to establish.

On Thursday, the Senate passed a measure that would deny foreigners declared to be "unlawful enemy combatants" the right to a hearing under the principle known as habeas corpus, which dates to Magna Carta. Instead, the measure would mandate an automatic review by a federal court of the status of the inmates now at Guantánamo Bay and any future prisoners of that kind. It would exclude coerced confessions from that review, and place important new controls over Guantánamo operations.

...The habeas petitions are not an undue burden. And in any case, they are a responsibility that this nation has always assumed to ensure that no one is held prisoner unjustly.

...We'd rather see the Senate delete the suspension of habeas corpus from Mr. Graham's measure now. Some constitutional principles are too important to play around with.

Please call your senators.