WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says the compromise deal on terror-detainee legislation reached last week "has to be changed," and that he will "vigorously oppose" a section of the bill which strips detainees of their right to appeal to the federal courts.
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter's opposition to a key provision of the compromise bill, worked out after weeks of negotiation, may put a spoke in the wheel of the GOP Senate leadership's efforts to pass the legislation, especially if they choose to combine it with another bill authorizing President George W. Bush's program of warrantless wiretaps of suspected terrorists.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania spoke for the first time Sunday about the compromise reached last week between the White House and three leading GOP senators on legislation setting standards for interrogating and trying suspected terrorists held in U.S. military custody.
"Most of it is a big improvement," Specter told CNN of the bill, which was published Friday. "But there's one part that I vigorously disagree with, and that is taking away the jurisdiction of the federal courts on what we call habeas corpus."
Habeas corpus is an ancient legal doctrine dating back to the origins of English common law in the Magna Carta of 1215, under which anyone held by the government can challenge the their detention -- forcing the courts to rule on its legality.
The bill would effectively remove the right of those detained outside of the United States, or those defined by U.S. authorities as "unlawful enemy combatants," to challenge their detention in court. It would also sweep away a number of cases already proceeding through the courts, according to the Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights.
Sklar said the bill, while enshrining the Geneva Conventions as the standard for treatment, would also remove them as a possible basis for private lawsuits, making the law effectively unenforceable.
"The absence of any reliable and objective means of challenging the U.S. government ... in court makes a mockery of even the more limited protections set out in this proposed bill," said Sklar, "since there is no realistic way for a victim to bring problems to a court's attention, and to seek redress."
The bill expands the restrictions placed on habeas petitions by detainees by the Detainee Treatment Act passed last year at the urging of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. That law restricted the rights of detainees held by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to use habeas petitions to challenge their detention, but it did not cover cases already filed; it also opened an alternative channel to the federal courts by making the district court for Washington, D.C., a court of last resort for those trying to contest their designation as "enemy combatants."
The new bill applies to anyone in U.S. custody outside the United States, is retroactive and applies to existing court cases and offers no alternative channel for detainees to contest their detention, or the conditions in which they are being held.
Announcing he would hold hearings on the issue this week, Specter pointed out that habeas petitions to the federal courts by Guantanamo detainees had been the basis of the U.S. Supreme Court cases that effectively forced the administration to revise the rules for their treatment and their trial by military commission.
Congress, he said, had punted on the issue, believing "it was too hot to handle."
"The federal courts just have to be open" to these cases, he said, noting that the constitution allows the suspension of habeas only "in time of rebellion or invasion. And we don't have either."
"So that has to be changed, in my opinion," Specter concluded.
Specter will find support for his opposition from a range of human rights groups. Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a left-leaning group in New York that has brought habeas petitions of behalf of some of those detained at Guantanamo, called the proposal "an outrage."
Ratner said habeas was "the fundamental right that protects us against arbitrary arrest and disappearance," and urged "a massive, massive public campaign about that."
Last week, the senior-most Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan, said he would work with Specter to eliminate the habeas provision.
Opposition to the habeas provisions of the detainee bill further complicates an already tricky legislative task for the GOP leadership in the Senate, which will wrap up for the election recess at the end of the week.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., brought the detainee compromise bill to the floor Friday, using a special procedure enabling him to bypass the committees of jurisdiction. But he also brought a bill to the floor combining that measure with one that authorizes the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps of suspected terrorists.
One senior Democratic Senate staffer said that including the wiretapping provision could complicate the issue, because there were a number of Republicans who oppose parts of that bill.
"The question is, if someone objects (to parts of the bill), will he have the votes to make cloture?" asked the staffer, referring to the parliamentary procedure required to end a filibuster and force a vote.
The prospects for the detainee legislation look a lot better than those of the surveillance bill, which has come under fire in the House, too.
Some Democrats fret that Republicans might combine the bills in a last minute maneuver to force the legislation through by making it politically difficult for opponents.
"What I worry about," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "is that, at 3:00 a.m. on Friday morning, this Friday, the last week that Congress is in before the election, there will be a take it or leave it program with lots of poison pills in it."
Harman, speaking on CNN, said opponents of the measure would be "put in a box: 'If you oppose this, you're soft on terror.'"
