They Write Letters

As the kids say, read the whole thing:

The Washington Post story published in the Sept. 20 Portland Press Herald erroneously reported that Sen. Susan Collins voted against cloture on a bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Arlen Specter allowing terrorism detainees the right of habeas corpus.

Unlike Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Collins shamefully voted in effect to deny detainees this historic right, which dates to 1215 and the Magna Carta. She ignored the plain language of the Constitution, which allows suspension of this right only "when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

Sen. Patrick Leahy made clear the bill's significance by saying: "Casting aside the time-honored protection of habeas corpus makes us more vulnerable as a nation because it leads us away from our core American values and calls into question our historic role as a defender of human rights around the world."

Characterizing the fight against terrorism as a "war," with its implications for presidential powers not otherwise allowed by the Constitution, is at the root of this country's current constitutional crisis.

A "war" against ill-defined enemies and of indefinite length provides a pretext for un-American abuses of the kind regularly employed by dictators.

The "war" argument was central to the opposition to this bill, as enunciated by Sen. Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama: "This is purely a matter of congressional policy and national policy on how we want to conduct warfare now and in the future."

I urge Mainers not to re-elect Sen. Collins, who blatantly rejects our basic constitutional values.

Meredith N. Springer

Peaks Island