Early American Musings

Because of the delights of our extended stay in Jersey City, we didn’t get to spend quite as much time as we had hoped in Philadelphia.
I’ve spent more time in Philadelphia than any other American city, but not usually as a tourist.  I was struck by how much of the meta-narrative at Independence Hall still adhered to traditional themes, focusing on the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We didn’t get to go on a full tour, so perhaps that is more nuanced. The Liberty Bell Center and the National Constitution Center also echoed this.

Considering the hefty emphasis here on the centrality of American rights and American as the birthplace of liberty, I am disturbed at how little some Americans seem to know about their rights. Just before we departed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly defined the meaning of “habeas corpus” during a Homeland Security Committee hearing. Even the New York Times slightly misinterpreted it, reporting that the right allows people to challenge their detentions by the government and is guaranteed in the Constitution.

Habeas Corpus is a most fundamental right. Habeas Corpus simply means when the state arrest you, it cannot hold you in detention unless you are charged with a crime: the police have to charge you after they have held you for a specific length of time. In the US, an individual can generally be held for 48 hours before being charged. In the UK that is 24 hours but can be extended to 36 if authorised by a senior officer, and can be extended to 14 days with judicial approval if the case is related to terrorism. Habeas corpus protects individuals from being arbitrarily detained by the state, particularly when the state objects to their actions, and then being held without being charged with any crime.

Habeas Corpus has its roots in the Magna Carta, reinstated in the English Bill of Rights of 1688, and from there, it was absorbed into US law. Abraham Lincoln controversially suspended habeas corpus in some border areas during the Civil War, and again, it was suspended at times during the Second World War. In both these instances there were substantial challenges to the law.

Habeas Corpus is absolutely central to individual liberty and the fact that so much emphasis is placed on rights and liberty while people don’t seem to know what those core rights are, and those in power can talk glibly about suspending habeas corpus, is extremely worrying.