Democracy for Vancouver

Freedom’s on the march (everywhere but here, evidently):

A Republican filibuster in the Senate today shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest their detentions and treatment in federal courts, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress’s difficulty with terrorism issues.

The 56-43 vote fell short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote on the amendment to the Senate’s annual defense policy bill. But the measure did garner the support of six Republicans, a small victory for its supporters.
…
The detainee rights bill was an effort to reverse a provision of last year’s Military Commissions Act, which suspended the writ of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects at the military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other off-shore prisons.

…At the urging of the Bush administration, the Republican-controlled Congress last year voted to sharply limit detainee access to the courts.
…
The Senate’s action “calls into question the United States’ historic role of defender of human rights in the world. It accomplishes what opponents could never accomplish on the battlefield, whittling away our own liberties,” [Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick] Leahy said. “This is America?”

Shit, shit, shit. I can only hope that the Dems will show enough backbone between now and next November to peel off a few more GOP seats, but that’s a long shot:

When Democrats took control of Congress in November, liberal activists and civil libertarians assumed the new Democratic majority would be quick to tackle what they have seen as excesses in President Bush’s “war on terror,” including the suspension of habeas corpus rights, wiretapping without court warrants, and the maintenance of the offshore prison in Guantanamo Bay.

But none of those has been reversed. Indeed last month, Congress extended and expanded the administration’s wiretapping program for six months.

Well, we can’t do anything about that, but there is still time to act on this:

After the vote, the Senate moved directly to the Webb-Hagel amendment, which could limit the number of troops in Iraq by stretching out their training and home deployments. A motion to break a filibuster on the measure attracted 56 votes in July, but this time, proponents are tantalizingly close to success.

Please call your Senators and ask them to support the Webb-Hagel amendment:

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

(Toll free Senate numbers poached from Atrios.)