Welcome to this explosive edition of Light ‘Em Up!
In these critical and delicate times that we find ourselves in — democracy is in clear and present danger.
As nothing feels certain or safe and everything appears to be in “transition” we interrogate and examine the Trump Administration and its efforts to suspend the “great writ” of Habeas corpus.
Habeas corpus is a legal doctrine whose original purpose was to contest detention by the king. The origins of the writ, or “written order” (its Latin name means, loosely, “produce the body”), can be traced to 13th century England.
On June 15, 1215, at Runnymede, the barons who had banded together to impose legal restrictions on King John's power forced him to affix his seal to the Magna Carta.
One of its curbs on the sovereign’s power reads, in part, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned…except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”
The writ of habeas corpus appears in the U.S. Constitution. Article 1, section 9, clause 2 includes this single sentence: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
Habeas corpus requires a jailer to produce a prisoner in a court of law so the basis for detention can be reviewed. The Constitution presupposes this right, but its use has been sharply restricted during past wars.
Fast forward to the present, as Donald Trump continues on his “revenge tour” — his administration has shown itself to be big on conducting legal proceedings without due process for the defendants it pursues, just as George W. Bush did with “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, post 9-11.
The Trump White House continues to break things like “Wreck it Ralph”— and has floated the idea of suspending Habeas corpus in the context of an “alien invasion” as it pertains to immigration, sparking widespread and grave concerns about the erosion of fundamental rights and the separation of powers.
With mass deportations taking place without due process and the suspension of Habeas corpus, the rule of law and democracy itself is under a serious threat.
While the Constitution allows for the suspension of Habeas corpus in cases of rebellion or invasion where the public safety is at stake, it is a power that must be exercised sparingly and only in extraordinary circumstances. Circumstances that we clearly are NOT in.
With this probing, penetrating and pointed look … we ask out loud if we are on a collision course with the tyranny that brought about a coup d’ état in Chile in 1973, where the military ousted then President Allende, General Agusto Pinochet seized power, democracy collapsed and repression, murder and great suffering followed (all backed and funded by the US CIA & State Department in the Nixon administration).
As we challenge you to think critically, we probe further, examining the historical suspension of Habeas corpus, we think you’ll be surprised to hear that one of the Presidents considered to be the “GOAT” (greatest of all time) suspended the writ of Habeas corpus, and we’ll deliver the facts not the fiction surrounding this.
We’ll itemize some of the “pitfalls” and potential terrible consequences of decisions such as this, as we’ve learned through a FOIA request that the FBI has ordered its agents to scale back white-collar crime investigations to pursue more immigration crime instead.
The rule of law and democracy are endangered!
Previous Supreme Courts have held in reverence and referred to Habeas corpus as, “the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.”
The current Supreme Court has been at best tepid in its support and defense of the U.S. Con
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