Habeas Corpus

The cable t.v. show Countdown did a slight overview of the meaning of the writ of habeas corpus. Econo-Girl wanted to talk a little bit more about it.

Black's Law Dictionary states that habeas corpus is "a writ used to bring a person before a court, most frequently to ensure that the party's imprisonment or detention is not illegal."

So if the United States had illegally locked someone up, and there was no habeas corpus, there would be no way to determine if the arrested person was being held in jail illegally. From there, we can infer that there would be no way of getting them out of jail, either. The writ of habeas corpus is "used to test the legality of an arrest or commitment."

See Black's Law Dictionary, Seventh Edition (1999).

Currently, the writ of habeas corpus has been suspended for detainees. So no one has to admit that some of the detainees don't belong there, let alone deserve getting beaten and abused. And if the detainees never see a judge, no one will find out about their beatings at the hands of U.S. soldiers.

Again, Econo-Girl has to ask: how long do you think this is going to last? How long are people going to stay quiet about what has happened in U.S. detention facilities? Not long.

Anna Politkovskaya

So who in their right mind will put their money in Russia now? Like it wasn't bad enough when the Russian editor of Forbes magazine was gunned down and left to bleed to death in an elevator.

Anna's death will not be in vain. Her personal sacrifice moved many people, including Econo-Girl.

What U.S. companies are invested in Russia now? Which have a financial interest in the success of the current regime? Let's find out. Then let's harass them. We shouldn't stay quiet on this topic. Big business flourishes in the U.S. because of people like us. We don't riot, for the most part, we pay taxes, we are stable. It our stability that big business stands on. They need it. All over the world, the U.S. dollar and equities are seen as safe havens for wealth. So let's use that. Let's make a vow to shake up Mother Russia.

Liability Insurance for Interrogators

The reason that CIA agents needed liability insurance related to their work as interrogators is that they realized they were being lied to about the law. They knew that they could not rely on the patsies of this Administration to tell them the truth about what was legal and what was not.

So they needed some kind of protection, and the liability insurance was it.

The good news about all of this is it implies that people are refusing to use torture in interrogations anymore without legal protection. Now that they have legal immunity that may have changed, but not by much. Everyone knows an election is coming up and a sea change is near. How long will an immunity last? How will it be interpreted? Such questions are natural ones for people taking the risks of prison, which I can assure you do not include our Attorney General, Mr. Torture himself.