Senate rejects attempt to restore detainee habeas corpus rights

Brian Beutler
Published: Thursday September 28, 2006

In a heavily partisan vote, an amendment that would have restored habeas corpus rights to detainees apprehended in the War on Terror failed to pass the Senate, RAW STORY has learned.

The amendment, proposed by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), would have eliminated the section of the Military Commissions Bill that denies judges the right to consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by any non-citizen of the United States deemed to be an enemy combatant captured after September 11, 2001.

In a statement released to RAW STORY, Senator Leahy described the measure, which codifies a status quo that many critics have decried as an infringement on basic liberties, as "unconstitutional." "It is un-American," Leahy said. "It is designed to ensure that the Bush-Cheney Administration will never again be embarrassed by a United States Supreme Court decision reviewing its unlawful abuses of power."

Among Republican Senators, John Sununu (R-NH), Gordon Smith (R-OR), and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) voted for the amendment along with Specter. None of the three Senators who negotiated the compromised Detainee Treatment Act – Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and John Warner (R-VA) – voted in favor of the amendment.

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska voted with the Republican Majority to pass the bill. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) did not issue a vote.

This vote cuts against the case of Yasir Hamdi, against whose indefinite detention without trial the Supreme Court recently ruledt. It also represents an intensification of the Detainee Treatment Act, which would have eliminated habeas corpus protection for future cases only. The current bill eliminates it in all cases retroactively.