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Comment by lerie82 | Hacker News Reader

I believe it, I was once held in a jail called Northern Neck Regional simply because the officer he could hold me for as long as he wanted, which turned out to be true. I was held for 9 days beyond my release date.

However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?

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>However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?

Habeas Corpus is a right of any person, not any citizen, so this is moot.

Even if it wasn't, obtaining a treason conviction is exceptionally difficult... particularly since we are not at declared war with any nation state, so it's an impossible crime to commit right now: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii

I agree that treason doesn't seem like a likely conviction, and even if so, it'd not take effect before a trial.

But if this were not US citizen, I don't think they'd necessarily have US person status, because they are apparently not held in US territory.

person means person, not "US person".

Habeas applies to persons, even on foreign soil: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-1195.ZS.html

edit: see also U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1989). The case law on this matter is lengthy.

Doesn't that depend where and how they're held? Military detention in an area of active conflict does not allow for habeas relief, no? Boumediene doesn't seen to apply there because it's not an area of de facto US sovereignty like Guantanamo is.

EDIT: s/if/of/ autocorrect typo

FWIW, that's why a lot of the discussions around this will refer to the applicability/interpretation of the 2001 / 2002 authorization to use military force (AUMF). Because that influences what an area of active military conflict can be.

No, non-citizens in foreign soil do not have any constitutional rights, including habeas. Boumediene is predicated on the idea that the US has de facto sovereign jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay Cuba. That reasoning wouldn’t apply in Iraq.

> Boumediene is predicated on the idea that the US has de facto sovereign jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

Indeed.

> No, non-citizens in foreign soil do not have any constitutional rights, including habeas.

I think that depends on the context and the definition of constitutional rights. There's no direct habeas, but longer-term military detention theoretically is only available in an declared military conflict. Which in turn depends on things like the 2001/2002 AUMF, and whether ISIS is a successor of AQ etc.

IANAL and absolute armchair amateur non-US citizen interpretation.

> I'm an appellate lawyer.* In a past life, I was an engineer at a cognitive radio startup.

Pretty damn cool.

To be clear, I agree that long term detention might be illegal, on the basis of the AUMF, international law, etc. Those other sources of rights are in addition to those stemming from the Constitution itself.

As a side note the Alien Tort Statute gives US Courts original jurisdiction over human rights abuses committed against non-citizens on foreign soil.

The courts have held arbitrary and prolonged detention, and forced disappearance are actionable under the statute.

No, someone who commits treason is entitled to be prosecuted for that crime by a federal court with the usual Constitutional protections. The wrinkle here is that the detainee is not on US soil and thus no federal court has territorial jurisdiction to grant habeas relief.

> The wrinkle here is that the detainee is not on US soil and thus no federal court has territorial jurisdiction to grant habeas relief.

I don't think that's true / settled law for US citizens. The current problem rather is that the of identity is unknown, making it hard to establish standing as a next friend to ask for habeas relief. Therefore ACLU is asking for it to be allowed to act as such, arguing that it can't be the case that keeping the identity secret prevents everybody from acting as next friend. Which seems like a pretty fair argument.

Andres

Not settled is the key. If there's a gray area then efforts like this aim to exploit that, until it's settled. And then they'll move on to finding the next loop hole.

Unless they classify you as unlawful combatant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld

The article discussed that even habeas corpus was denied.

From Wikipedia:

>The November 13, 2001, Presidential Military Order purported to give the President of the United States the power to detain non-citizens suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism as enemy combatants. As such, that person could be held indefinitely, without charges being filed against him or her, without a court hearing, and without legal counsel. Many legal and constitutional scholars contended that these provisions were in direct opposition to habeas corpus, and the United States Bill of Rights and, indeed, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004)[38] the U.S. Supreme Court re-confirmed the right of every American citizen to access habeas corpus even when declared to be an enemy combatant. The Court affirmed the basic principle that habeas corpus could not be revoked in the case of a citizen.

> However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?

You'd have to convict them first, and you'd have to charge them to do that. Keeping a citizen detained without charge is a violation of human rights and something you only expect from a totalitarian regime.

> "Keeping a citizen detained without charge is a violation of human rights and something you only expect from a totalitarian regime."

If it walks like a duck. And talks like a duck. Then it's a duck.

Treason, possibly uniquely in the US, has a specific, constitutional definition. You can't just throw that word around (in legal context).

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

> However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?

He has not been convicted of any crime, let alone treason. He hasn't even been formally accused of any crime. He's just locked up, without access to a lawyer, without any charges being laid against him.

>>However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?

Even if true, only after a court /jury decides. "Trump" can't say, "You committed treason, you have no rights," he can accuse you of treason and take you to court.

>However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?

Even if that was the case how would be the treason verified?

If it doesn't need to be verified, it's like there's no rule of law at all -- authorities merely need to say that someone is a traitor and that's it.

It is hard to understand how you could even think this is so. This is so wrong that the hardest thing to do is to decide which way it is wrong first.

- You can't lose your rights without due process of law. If the mere assertion was enough we could throw anyone in the clink without meeting any burden of proof.

- Treason is only special in that the high bar to prove it is outlined in the constitution and that it carries the possibility of the death penalty. It has no bearing on your rights as a citizen.

- The right to discover whom is being held and for what purpose is so basic that by definition it must apply to everyone including non citizens or else it is worthless because you first necessarily need access to this information or to the party involved to establish the basis of anyone's right. If they disappear you in the night we can't establish that you have rights that are being trampled if all we have is a theory that its you the government is holding in a gulag.

Sure, maybe, but that'd be only after they are tried and convicted of treason. At the moment they must be assumed innocent (until proven guilty) of treason, and have all the rights of any accused person in the US justice system.

Not without due process. That's what the Constitution is for.

Also, the US Constitution has a specific definition of treason.

Does the right to a trial applies only to citizens in the US?

At least not since Obama missiled a US citizen and his teenage son w/out charge.

There are some international treaties US is part of that mandate certain behavior from US to non-US citizens in the US. It depends on the particular citizenship. There's requirement to allow access to consulate, for some countries of origin there's requirement to notify consulate if a citizen of that country was detained, etc.

US gov. can violate these at their own peril. It's all based on reciprocity, assuming US citizens would also get worse treatment elsewhere.

This is misleading. Sure, some rights depend on international treaties, but the fundamental rights of people in the US apply to everyone irrespective of nationality.

“Citizen” it should be noted doesn’t mean the same thing as “person legally living in the USA”. There’s another term used: “US Person” to denote someone living in the US with, as a result, certain rights under law. The media often say Citizen when they mean US Person.

Depends on your definition of trial. Non US citizens held in areas that are de facto controlled by the US have basic habeas rights:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush

That'd not hold for areas of active hostilities however.

IANAL.

Noncitizens in the US also have the right to a trial. Actually, the US has something of a tradition of declaring that noncitizens outside the US have somehow come under US jurisdiction (e.g., the people who killed Daniel Pearl).

Someone who is convicted might.

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