America can't pretend to be a moral beacon for the world as long as it rounds people up, holds them indefinitely and refuses to charge them in court. Even Nazi war criminals were given trials by the Allies in 1946 - though British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said they should be "hunted down and shot."
But suspected terrorists in U.S. custody are now denied the right of habeas corpus, the celebrated "great writ of liberty" that would let them challenge their detentions in U.S. courts. It is inscribed in Article I of the U.S. Constitution and was recognized in the Magna Carta.
Congress removed that right, in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, for any "alien ... detained as an enemy combatant or ... awaiting such determination." In the same act, Congress set up military commissions to act as tribunals. But these commissions don't allow an "unlawful enemy combatant" (left largely undefined) to invoke the rights laid out in the Geneva Conventions.
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