This is intended as a real life example how desperately — no fatuous or unnecessary hyperbole intended — essential the privilege of habeas corpus is.

The right is the only protection against an excess of government authority that was inserted in the original draft of the United States Constitution (http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html). Every other protection was included as a sort of afterthought amendment. The right, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus (Lat.: “produce the body”) shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it,” can be found at Section 9 of Article 1.

John McCain claims the recent Supreme Court decision observing the right is enjoyed by those held by the Bush administration as detainees is “one of the worst in our history.” That alarmingly unimaginative remark, in itself, ought to give anxious pause to any who might be contemplating the suitability of the Arizona senator as our next president.

The sentiment — extending rights to non-US citizens is an outrage — that has been expressed by the senator, and echoed by a multitude on the Right, ought to receive appropriate condemnation by everyone who believes in the barest principles of justice and who possess even cursory familiarity with our constitution. I provided the URL that will enable everyone to examine the precious document for a reason: so it can be scoured for the first hint that the protections enumerated are restricted to “citizens” of the United States. You can either trust me, or review it for yourself, but the protections all refer to either “the people” or “persons.” (And for all who would assert that “well they meant X,” I’d like to receive demonstrable, historical attribution validating that allegation.)

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the Uighur Muslim minority in China, held for six years at Guantánamo Bay without specific charge, has been held unlawfully, or, at least that the administration’s thrice-stated “trust us” assertions (In the declassified documents released by the administration, the sole basis of the government’s claims against Mr. Parhat were that it’s “accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.”) were insufficient to warrant Mr. Parhat’s incarceration. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/washington/01gitmo.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1214924738-81vERtMiYDIVyXjWa78mWQ)

This submission is not going to engage the labyrinthine difficulties, what to do with Mr. Parhat now; no country will accept him, and a return to his original home would endanger his life. What this discussion seeks to illustrate is the need for habeas corpus and to question each and all, and most especially Mr. McCain, who would brush it aside on “convenience.”

Before I can get to the specific corpus issue, I want to discard as irrelevant any insertion into the argument the fact that Mr. Parhat’s Muslim religion ought to play any part in the discussion. Mr. Parhat asserted from the first that he fled China because of that government’s policy of intolerance of an expression and practice of his religion, and because of China’s 1-child/forced abortion policies. I want to imagine that if any argument on behalf of Mr. Parhat’s actions might resonate with those on the Right, it would be that one. Secondly is this fact: whatever your religion is, let’s say you’re Christian, overwhelmingly the odds are that you identify with it, not out of any scrupulous research into the religion’s merits, but by dint of having been born into it, and that, if you had been born in Islamabad, for example, you would be at least as fervent a Muslim as you may now be a Christian. (As being apostate is regarded as a heresy condemnable by death, it’s very likely you’d be exponentially more fervent in your beliefs.)

Now let’s take this discussion into the very pit of your guts. Imagine for a moment that you live in one of New York City’s five Burroughs, and that you have a non-US citizen relative, perhaps from Canada or Ireland or Great Britain or Germany, who’s visiting. Now also imagine that the last time you knew of the whereabouts of your relative, he was riding in a taxicab. It has now been three days since you heard from your relative. You’re concerned, and have called every agency — the State Department, the relevant consulates, the NYPD, the FBI, every hospital — and utter silence has been the response. Three days slides into three months, then to three years. It is as if your relative never, ever even existed.

Now suppose that the US government was offering a $100,000 bounty for information that led to the arrest and capture of “suspected terrorists,” as was our policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Can you not imagine that someone might be tempted to haul your relative in for the money? Recall that many — some sources assert “most” — of the captured “worst of the worst” detainees were the product of nothing more than the lure of sums that represented theretofore undreamable fortunes to those bringing the detainee to American attention.

But you say, “My Uncle Seamus sure as hell ain’t no terrorist.” Prove it! Especially when you have no clue, and the government is providing none, when he was picked up, where he was sent, or even if he was picked up or even if he’s alive. Remember, you strongly claimed, as did Justice Scalia and Senator McCain, that extending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to non-US citizens was “one of the worst decisions in U history.” What say you now, now that the ankle shackle is around your Uncle Seamus’ foot, or that it might be? You’ve no way of knowing . . . remember. So, again, what say you now?

I’m begging everyone who knows someone who claims to side with Scalia, Senator McCain and their ilk, to put the issue to them pretty much as I have; one, with full knowledge the Constitution makes no limiting reference to any citizenship status in order that anyone be áprióri entitled to protection against government oppression, and two, would they truly want the government to have the authority to secret away those it deems an undesirable, based solely on whatever whim it feels might be most persuasive at the moment.

— Ed Tubbs