Forgoing a fundamental right in terror fight

Re “Legal Battle Over Detainee Bill Is Likely,” Sept. 29

This is one of the darkest days in the United States in my lifetime. It is shocking that 51 senators voted to give up the writ of habeas corpus.

That’s taking a 790-year step backward in civil rights. Conservatives claim to be strict constructionists, but only when it suits their purposes -- so it’s all right to invade another country without a declaration of war, and it’s all right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus even when we aren’t being invaded and there is no rebellion.

It is also disturbing that those of us supporting such a fundamental right (and it should be close to 50% of the people if the Senate vote reflects the views of the people) don’t protest and shut the country down.

How can we let this happen? We are as bad as the Germans in the 1930s. This is huge, and hardly anyone cares.

PAUL HOFFMAN

Irvine

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Republicans and some feckless Democrats have just provided legal consent for people in our country to be picked up off the streets, held indefinitely in isolation from the world, tortured and tried in courts without habeas corpus.

It has passed without due notice that this American Night and Fog Decree was passed within a week of the 60th anniversary of the verdicts in the Nuremberg Trial, where these acts were rightly judged as crimes against humanity.

KEN LEVY

Los Angeles

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Re “Habeas corpus for all,” editorial, Sept. 28

The Times maintains that legislation must grant aliens detained at Guantanamo a right to habeas. And if not, Congress will have violated the U.S. Constitution by suspending the writ when there is no rebellion or invasion.

The detainees have no constitutional right to habeas. As the court stated in Johnson vs. Eisentrager, a 1950 decision that still applies on this point, nothing in the Constitution extends the right of habeas to an alien enemy who has never been held within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

The Times implies that President Bush’s administration has wronged the detainees, who have the same right to habeas that Americans enjoy. But the editors never identify the source of that right.

Its only source seems to be their concern for barbarians who deny Americans even the right to live.

MIKE HOLLINS

Los Angeles