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Thursday, Sep 28, 2006
habeas corpus n. Law A writ issued to bring a party before a court to prevent unlawful restraint. [Med. Lat., you should have the body] Source: AHD
The basic premise behind habeas corpus is that you cannot be held against your will without just cause. To put it another way, you cannot be jailed if there are no charges against you. If you are being held, and you demand it, the courts must issue a writ or habeas corpus, which forces those holding you to answer as to why. If there is no good or compelling reason, the court must set you free. It is important to note that of all the civil liberties we take for granted today as a part of the Bill of Rights, the importance of habeas corpus is illustrated by the fact that it was the sole liberty thought important enough to be included in the original text of the Constitution.
The basic premise behind habeas corpus is that you cannot be held against your will without just cause. To put it another way, you cannot be jailed if there are no charges against you. If you are being held, and you demand it, the courts must issue a writ or habeas corpus, which forces those holding you to answer as to why. If there is no good or compelling reason, the court must set you free. It is important to note that of all the civil liberties we take for granted today as a part of the Bill of Rights, the importance of habeas corpus is illustrated by the fact that it was the sole liberty thought important enough to be included in the original text of the Constitution.
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Wednesday, Sep 27, 2006
Talk about a tough room
In the New and Improved Constitution-Lite America, humor is once again a punishable offense. All you budding Lenny Bruce's out there, watch your step, punk!
This is the kind of "justice" the Congress is about to enshrine into law:
By James Rupert, Newsday | November 6, 2005
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Badr Zaman Badr and his brother Abdurrahim Muslim Dost relish writing a good joke that jabs a corrupt politician or distills the sufferings of fellow Afghans. Badr admires the political satires in ''The Canterbury Tales" and ''Gulliver's Travels," and Dost wrote some wicked lampoons in the 1990s, accusing Afghan mullahs of growing rich while preaching and organizing jihad.
So in 2002, when the US military shackled the writers and flew them to the US naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, among prisoners whom Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared ''the worst of the worst" violent terrorists, the brothers found life imitating farce. For months, interrogators grilled them over a satirical article Dost had written in 1998, when the Clinton administration offered a $5 million reward for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Dost responded that Afghans put up 5 million Afghanis, about $113, for the arrest of President Clinton.
''It was a lampoon . . . of the poor Afghan economy" under the Taliban, Badr recalled.
The interrogators didn't get the joke, he said. ''Again and again, they were asking questions about this article. We had to explain that this was a satire." He paused. ''It was really pathetic."
It took the brothers three years to convince the Americans that they posed no threat to Clinton or the United States, and to get released.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Badr Zaman Badr and his brother Abdurrahim Muslim Dost relish writing a good joke that jabs a corrupt politician or distills the sufferings of fellow Afghans. Badr admires the political satires in ''The Canterbury Tales" and ''Gulliver's Travels," and Dost wrote some wicked lampoons in the 1990s, accusing Afghan mullahs of growing rich while preaching and organizing jihad.
So in 2002, when the US military shackled the writers and flew them to the US naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, among prisoners whom Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared ''the worst of the worst" violent terrorists, the brothers found life imitating farce. For months, interrogators grilled them over a satirical article Dost had written in 1998, when the Clinton administration offered a $5 million reward for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Dost responded that Afghans put up 5 million Afghanis, about $113, for the arrest of President Clinton.
''It was a lampoon . . . of the poor Afghan economy" under the Taliban, Badr recalled.
The interrogators didn't get the joke, he said. ''Again and again, they were asking questions about this article. We had to explain that this was a satire." He paused. ''It was really pathetic."
It took the brothers three years to convince the Americans that they posed no threat to Clinton or the United States, and to get released.
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