Earlier today the Senate voted down an amendment to a defense authorization bill which would have restored habeas corpus -- the right to contest one's arrest in a court of law -- to foreign "enemy combatants" detained by U.S. authorities. The AP reported that Sen. Lindsey Graham claimed that giving suspected terrorists a right to challenge their detention would allow them to go "judge shopping" for a sympathetic court. This indicates a striking lack of faith in America's judicial system and a belief in the unimpeachable integrity of the military and the executive branch.

By contrast, Sen. Patrick Leahy said the failure to restore habeas corpus "calls into question the United States' historic role of defender of human rights in the world. It accomplishes what opponents could never accomplish on the battlefield, whittling away our own liberties."

As Leahy suggests, this is not just a political issue, it is a moral one. Faith groups such as the National Religious Campaign Against Torture have spoken out on habeas corpus and torture repeatedly. The two issues are intertwined because the suspension of habeas corpus is one of the key enablers of torture.

As it stands right now, the United States government can hold prisoners at Guantanamo and other military prisons indefinitely, without any access to any defense in court. That is not detention, it is "disappearing," a practice associated with dictatorships that we used to denounce.