Herald.com | 11/13/2005 | Senate measure would undercut court's authority: "For almost eight centuries the ''great writ'' of habeas corpus has been a bedrock principle of English and American law, from the Magna Carta to today's jails and courts. It's the means for a prisoner to contest his imprisonment before a judge.
That's one reason legal experts were stunned when the Senate, after an hour of debate and no hearings, voted Thursday to adopt a measure that, if it becomes law, would overturn the Supreme Court's extension of habeas corpus protection to 500-plus detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba."