O habeas corpus, we hardly knew ye.

Molly Ivins is at it again, with a brilliant piece on the detainee/torture bill working its way through Congress. Not only does it allow a lot of torture (but slightly less than the White House would like), but apparently it does away with habeas corpus relief. Which is a Big Deal in criminal law. My head hurts. To me, the only debate left is over the kind of container in which this country is going to Hell (point to Joe W. for coming up with that line). Here's a snippet from Ms. Ivins:

The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.

As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon “degenerates into a playground for sadists.” But not unbridled sadism—you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving “severe pain” and substituted “serious pain,” which is defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain.”