Habeas corpus provides a remedy against arbitrary detentions and constitutional violations.  It guarantees an opportunity to go to court, with the aid of a lawyer, to prove one's innocence.  As Justice Scalia stated in the  Hamdi case, "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive."  The remedy that secures that most basic of freedoms is habeas corpus.
...
The bill before us would not merely suspend the writ of habeas corpus; it would eliminate it permanently.  It would cut off all habeas petitions - not just those founded on relatively technical claims, but also those founded on claims of complete innocence.
...
That is not speculation.  It is not a critic's characterization of the bill.  It is what the bill plainly says, on its face.  It is what the Bush-Cheney Administration is demanding.  It is what any member who votes against the Specter-Leahy amendment and for the bill today will be endorsing.
...
This is wrong. It is unconstitutional.  It is un-American.  It is designed to ensure that the Bush-Cheney Administration will never again be embarrassed by a United States Supreme Court decision reviewing its unlawful abuses of power.
...
This bill gives up the ghost.  This bill is not a check on the Administration but a voucher for future wrongdoing.

On Friday, September 29, It's Mourning in America

The man who has endangered America, according to his own restructured intelligence agencies and the facts reported in just one week, is allowed to destroy our Constitution and decide, on his own, who will be tortured.
...
This is a suicidal act in terms of our national security. It is giving un-Constitutional and barbaric powers to a man who has miserably and persistently failed us and lied to this nation at every turn - as born out by the facts. It is a thuggish game of forcing an alternative reality upon America, a noxious, deadly one.

Today, tears would flow down the olive robe of the Statue of Liberty if she were human.