Chris Dodd for President

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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After detaining hundreds of terrorism suspects for more than five years at the Guantánamo Bay prison, the Bush administration still hasn't created a fair system for trying terror-war crimes. The first military commissions were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Now the second set of rules for terror-war trials, issued last month, fails -- again -- to abide by long-established U.S. and international legal standards.

Coercion, not torture

As Lord Peter Goldsmith, Britain's top lawyer, told the American Bar Association in Miami on Monday, ``The changes made are too little and too late. There remain fundamental problems with this system of detention.''

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Senate Democrats Tuesday unveiled proposed legislation to restore some legal rights to suspected terrorists, but distanced themselves from calls to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., filed a bill that would restore the right of detainees to challenge their detention, bar evidence gained through torture and allow detainees to invoke the Geneva Convention.

The filing comes four months after the GOP-led Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, described by supporters as a critical weapon against terrorism.

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Sen. Chris Dodd introduced legislation Tuesday to provide suspected terrorists with basic rights to a fair and speedy trial granted to American citizens under the U.S. Constitution.

The legislation would replace a military tribunal law Congress approved last September at the behest of the Bush administration. The law imposed restrictions on a terrorist suspect's ability to challenge his detention, examine evidence against him and bar testimony obtained through coercion.

"I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting this country from terrorists," the Connecticut Democrat said. "But there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this."

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