The modern institution of civil and human rights, and particularly the writ of habeas corpus, began in June of 1215 when King John was forced by a group of feudal lords to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede.

Two of the most critical parts of the Magna Carta were articles 38 and 39, which established the foundation for what is now known as "habeas corpus" laws (literally, "produce the body" from the Latin - meaning, broadly, "let this person go free or else give him a trial - you may not hold him forever with charging him with a crime"). The concept of habeas corpus in the Magna Carta led directly to the Fourth through Eighth Amendments of our Constitution, and hundreds of other federal and state due process provisions.

Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta said:

"38 In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.

"39 No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

The administration is obviously aware of the transparent, and really quite pitiful, election-based fear that is consuming Democrats and rendering them unwilling to impede (or even object to) the administration's seizure of more and more unchecked power in the name of fighting terrorism. As a result of this abdication by the Democrats, the Washington Post reports, the administration spent the weekend expanding even further the already-extraordinary torture and detention powers vested in it by the McCain-Warner-Graham "compromise."

...The tyrannical nature of these powers is not merely theoretical. The Bush administration has already imprisoned two American citizens -- Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi -- and held them in solitary confinement in a military prison while claiming the power to do so indefinitely and without ever having to bring charges. And now, it is about to obtain (with the acquiescence, if not outright support, of Senate Democrats) the express statutory power to detain people permanently (while subjecting them, for good measure, to torture) without providing any venue to contest the validity of their detention. And as Democrats sit meekly by, the detention authority the administration is about to obtain continues -- literally each day -- to expand, and now includes some of the most dangerous and unchecked powers a government can have.

Unlike others here, many of whom lost friends/acquaintences/family on 9/11, my reaction was a sense that we were about to lose our ability to think clearly without hatred. My first reaction was, “we’re about to become Israel and Palestine, and we will become lost in an endless cycle of revenge and counter-revenge, with no way out, and it doesn’t matter which side we think we’re on, because we will not be able to see that our first, most powerful instinct will be our worst.”

In the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the side you think most justified in its actions depends on which event you think is the start of history. For Americans, too much of our thinking begins on 9/11 or some similar event in which we were attacked. And in this we’re not different from others; it is always hard for any people to view their own sense of justification and history in any other way, but almost impossible for the other side to see it the way we do. 9/11 rememberances are inevitable, but I’m afraid they’re only helpful if we try to view it from another’s perspective.

If we as “outsiders” can see that the Israelis and Palestinians must speak with each other to escape the cycle of violence, why cannot we see that we also have to speak with those we perceive as nothing but evil (and who see us exactly the same way). And if someone has a better plan for how humanity gets out this endless cycle, I’d like to hear it, cause so far, the conventional wisdom is not working.