I fear that
habeas corpus in this country will soon be a corpse. As I have watched this legislative Katrina approach, I kept thinking of the play and movie
A Man for All Seasons (both the Paul Scofield and Charlton Heston versions). In particular the scene about giving the Devil the benefit of law comes to the fore. I thought it might be informative to share that scene's dialogue.
Setting - Sir Thomas More has declined to employ Richard Rich, who has just left the room.
Alice: Arrest him!
More: Why, what has he done?
Margaret: He's bad!
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forrester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
The life and dramatization theirof of Sir Thomas More yet again becomes relevant. It would be prudent, to say the least, to give the terrorists the benefit of habeas corpus for our own safety's sake.