Habeas Corpus

First, a little history lesson.

In 12th century England, free men began demanding a check on the rights of the authorities to arbitrarily arrest whoever they wanted. No one back then questioned the power to arrest people arbitrarily, but it was considered too much for someone to be arrested without explanation. In 1305 the term habeas corpus - Latin for "we command that you have the body" - appeared when King Edward I formally recognized this right. But it wasn't for another three centuries that the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 formally codified it. In 1772 this act was used by a man named Somersett who held in slavery to successfully sue for his freedom. "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it," wrote the court. America's Founding Fathers carried this old English right over into their new nation, writing in the Sixth Amendment that a defendant "be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation."

While both England and the United States have occasionally suspended or ignored habeas corpus, it has more or less endured for eight centuries because the idea that the government can jail a person without even telling them what crime they are accused of is offensive to basic human sensibilities - the basic desire of all people to be free.

This week habeas corpus suffered both a setback and a victory. In the U.K., the birth place of habeas corpus, Parliament voted to allow the government to hold people for 42 days without charge. The movie In the Name of the Father tells the story of the Guildford Four: U.K. citizens who were imprisoned without charge for 28 days - the previous limit - during which time they were tortured into confessing to IRA bombings that they did not commit.

In this country, the news was more positive. The Supreme Court ruled that the government can not indefinitely imprison terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay without charging them with a crime and giving them the opportunity to try to prove their innocence. John McCain blasted the ruling, calling it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." (Yahoo news has a list of other Supreme Court decisions that might make McCain think twice about calling this one "one of the worst") And, of course, conservatives in Congress are already trying to get around it.

Barack Obama, who voted against both the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act that the court partially overruled in this case, has taken the politically inexpedient but principled path of defending the basic rights of everyone, even accused terrorists, to know the charges against them.

"We are going to live up to our ideals when it comes to rule of law," said Obama, who, as a constitutional law professor, knows a thing or two about the fundamental rights and freedoms that we enjoy in this country. "John McCain thinks the Supreme Court was wrong," Obama said. "I think the Supreme Court was right."