The Constitution Needs You To Make A Few Phone Calls Today

[Hissyspit]

From Firedoglake:

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/05/09/the-constitution-needs-your-voice

The Constitution Needs Your Voice

By: Christy Hardin Smith
The Constitution needs you to make a few phone calls today. It would like to be whole again. I figure it is the least we can do for a document that has guided our nation through the last two centuries and then some. If you can spare some time today, I would really appreciate it if you would make a few calls.

- snip -

What am I talking about, you ask? Matt Stoller of MyDD called me yesterday afternoon to say that he had heard the House Armed Services Committee was considering adding a provision to the Defense Department Authorization Bill being marked up in committee today and Thursday. According to what Stoller was told, Chairman Ike Skelton has the votes to pass this provision through the committee and add it to the bill.

But there is a question whether they want and/or need to fight for this particular principle now — or whether it would be politically advantageous later. My response to Stoller on this was "yeah, I can understand that, seeing how habeas corpus has been a revered piller of western legal philosophy and an ethical imperative as a civil right since the Magna Carta, how they'd want to just sit on that one for a while and think about it and all." Well, not really. What I said was, "how can I help push this through?"

And that's where you guys come in.

Matt has put together a list of all the phone numbers for Democratic leadership offices that need to be called, as well as numbers for the members of the House Armed Services Committee. Please call and tell them that you want habeas corpus restored — completely and fully — and that we elected them to a majority in Congress to do the tough work, not to sit back and keep their powder dry.

Here are the numbers:

Leadership
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, [phone]
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, [phone]

Armed Services Committee Democrats
Ike Skelton, Missouri, Chairman, 202-225-2876
John Spratt, South Carolina, 202-225-5501
Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas, [phone]
Gene Taylor, Mississippi, 202 225-5772
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii, [phone]
Marty Meehan, Massachusetts, [phone]
Silvestre Reyes, Texas, [phone]
Vic Snyder, Arkansas, 202-225-2506
Adam Smith, Washington, [phone]
Loretta Sanchez, California, 202-225-5859
Mike McIntyre, North Carolina, [phone]
Ellen O. Tauscher, California, [phone]
Robert A. Brady, Pennsylvania, [phone]
Robert Andrews, New Jersey, 202-225-6501
Susan A. Davis, California, [phone]
Rick Larsen, Washington, [phone]
Jim Cooper, Tennessee, 202-225-4311
Jim Marshall, Georgia, 202-225-4311
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam, [phone]
Mark Udall, Colorado, [phone]
Dan Boren, Oklahoma, [phone]
Brad Ellsworth, Indiana, [phone]
Nancy Boyda, Kansas, [phone]
Patrick Murphy, Pennsylvania, [phone]
Hank Johnson, Georgia, [phone]
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire,[phone]
Joe Courtney, Connecticut, [phone]
David Loebsack, Iowa, 202.225.6576
Kirsten Gillibrand, New York, [phone]
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania, [phone]
Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona, [phone]
Elijah Cummings, Maryland, [phone]
Kendrick Meek, Florida, 202-225-4506
Kathy Castor, Florida, [phone]

Here are a few reasons why habeas corpus matters and why restoring it for enemy combatants so that our bedrock legal principles are whole again are important — just in case you aren't quite sure what all of this is about or you missed the discussion when the initial vote for restrictions on habeas corpus occurred:

1. From Why Habeas Review Matters:

Of all of the legal protections that we hold as American ideals and as examples to other nations as embodied in our Bill of Rights, the right of habeas corpus is the only civil liberty to be held so important by the Founders that it was included in the Constitution itself. This week, the United States Senate voted to restrict that right of petition for grievance.

MUCH MORE, INCLUDING QUOTES FROM KEITH OLBERMANN, AND FURTHER LINKS, AT LINK, READ IT!

[Hissyspit]

1. .

[AuntPatsy]

2. Kick & Recommended, just another of a long list of attacks on this

country's once proud standing of being a true democracy, when will the destruction of out democracy end? I would think when enough citizens rise up and demand their rights stop being trampled on, to believe your voice does little good is propaganda...

History proves that you the people can not only demand change but can ensure it happens..our history of womens rights as well as civil rights movements proves such.

[EFerrari]

3. K&R