Progressive Buttons Blog

There was a secret trial held today, not by Pakistan, or Zimbabwe, or North Korea, but by the United States of America. Here in America, where the Constitution requires a fair and speedy trial by a jury of peers, a man is being put on trial without outside observers, with evidence obtained through torture allowed, using testimony obtained without protection from self-incrimination, and before the accused was even actually accused of any crime.

This defendant was kept in solitary confinement in a prison for years without there even being a formal declaration that he was suspected of a crime. The American government refused to even acknowledge his habeas corpus rights, the ancient foundation of free government.

You may say that it’s okay, because the man going through the secret trial, closed to the public, is a terrorist. The truth is, though, that you don’t know that he’s a terrorist. He’s never been convicted of any terrorism-related crime. All you know is that the government says that he’s a terrorist.

What if you were in the defendant’s seat - and the government said you were a terrorist? What would you have to say in response? Would you still be okay with habeas corpus rights being stripped away?

This political button confronts a grave injustice - the revocation of habeas corpus rights. I support habeas corpus. Ask me why.

You don’t have to ask me why I support habeas corpus. I support habeas corpus because the next person accused by our government of being a terrorist could be me.