Restoring Habeas Corpus?

Here’s a story I want to follow. Maybe the Democrats will follow through on this one after all…

From: The Nation
Blink Tanks Fight to Restore Habeas Corpus
By Ari Melber

…there is one progressive group with the political influence, financial clout and policy expertise to put constitutional rights on the Congressional agenda: the emerging network of liberal bloggers, netroots activists and blink tanks--blogs that function as online think tanks--that have been doggedly fighting the Bush Administration's six-year assault on the Constitution…

…[Chris] Dodd, one of the most liberal foreign policy voices in the Senate, has introduced the "Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act" to repeal key provisions of the MCA, including narrowing the Administration's vague definition of enemy combatants, banning trial evidence extracted through torture or coercion, revoking Bush's authority to "interpret" the Geneva Conventions to allow practices amounting to torture and restoring habeas corpus. (Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee from both parties have introduced a similar stand-alone bill that would restore habeas corpus.) Dodd's father served as a prosecutor at Nuremberg, and the Senator has long argued that human rights and fair trials are fundamental to the United States' moral authority. His spokeswoman says the bill is one of his "top priorities" this year, and his staff is doing outreach to Connecticut and national blogs to build support for the effort.

Another senior Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill told The Nation that members of Congress increasingly look to blogs to see which issues are important to their constituents. While lamenting that some Democratic incumbents have tried to avoid human rights issues for fear of a political backlash, he said "a sustained push by blogs and Internet activists groups like MoveOn" will prevent Democrats from "running away from these issues."…