"A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody."I know that it is unlikely that many of the readers of this blog would have a spare couple of hours to spend listening to a streaming radio show and lecture. But I feel strongly enough to blog about this and suggest that listening to these 2 streaming boradcasts would be well worth your time.
- the first is a 58min NPR broadcast of This American Life called "Habeas Schmabeas" that actually interviewed a couple of Guantanamo detainees. This is the first time I have actually heard directly from any detainee from Guantanamo and the show does an excellent job of discussing the status of the detainees I found via BoingBoing. What was eye opening for me were the personal testimonies of Badr and Abdullah (sp?), two Pakistani men wrongfully detained as terrorists. (What kills me is the sense of humour that these 2 detainees still had despite being incarcerated in Guantanamo). The show also delves into the historical background and reasons for the presence of Habeas Corpus in the law.
- the second is a streaming broadcast of Noam Chomsky's lecture "Illegal but Legitimate: A Dubious Doctrine for the Times" which he delivered on Oct. 28th 2004 at the University of Michigan's Law School. I think that Chomsky's lecture provides a highly insightful account of the long documented account of states developing legitamacy for taking unilateral action. While this is interesting, the part of the lecture that pertained to the NPR show is when a student asked Chomsky what he thought about Guantanamo. To paraphrase Chomsky's reply, "Ask yourself what we are doing in Guantanamo in the first place."
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