> "There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there's > a prohibition against taking it away," Gonzales said.
Well -- um. The actual text from Section 9 of the Constitution is: The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. So, it sounds to me like this interpretation is correct. The authors of the constitution had the view that men are "endowed by their Creator" with rights (though that exact phrase is from the Declaration of Independence) so the language in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is generally written as *limiting* what the government can do with regard to those rights, not as *granting* the rights themselves, which exist a priori. Allan -- 1983 300D 1966 230
