Political Quotes

“I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds. Three quick points: First of all, habeas has already been guaranteed by the Constitution. There were those who accused last year's defense bill of having stripped habeas, but it didn't, so guaranteeing habeas does nothing to further protect the rights of individuals. That's first of all. Second of all, the bill itself, the way it is worded, which is to say: Nothing shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or deny any constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under article III of the Constitution for any person who is lawfully in the United States when detained. It has been ruled constitutional to place people in military custody, to hold them indefinitely. This amendment does not eliminate the right to hold people indefinitely or place them in military custody. It does not do what the next amendment--my amendment--actually does, which is protects those rights. Third, I find it interesting that the authors of this amendment think that it does. They think that basically this will protect from indefinite detention and from military custody any person lawfully in the United States. At the same time, they are arguing that our amendment that clearly does that for everybody is giving rights to terrorists. What they are doing here, by their own admission--and I disagree with that argument.…”