US Government considering suspending habeas corpus | Hacker News Reader

US Government considering suspending habeas corpus

bbc.com

95 pointsintunderflow31 comments

Full on fascism.

Article I, Section 9 says:

> 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.

I wonder what we can find in the “emanations from penumbras” of the word “invasion.”

Clear for all to see. History will not be kind to those US 71 million voters:

"Protecting the American People Against Invasion" - https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/prot...

Notably, Trump has already officially declared that the US is facing an invasion back in March.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invo...

"They did it first!" is the reasoning of a child.

It is important to understand that the "penumbra" used as part of the justification of Roe expands the liberty of individuals and limits the power of the state. There is further an entire amendment (the 9th) that expressly says that such penumbras exist and that the constitution does not contain an exhaustive list of liberties.

This is wildly different than saying "well, invasion can mean anything so its fascism time."

> It is important to understand that the "penumbra" used as part of the justification of Roe expands the liberty of individuals and limits the power of the state.

So does Lochner. There’s a libertarian reading of the constitution where you can justify interpreting the text so as to maximize individual liberty. But almost nobody subscribes to that. They just like reading the text expansively when it comes to sexual liberties and narrowly when it comes to economic ones. Which is certainly the exact opposite of what the founders were concerned about.

Self identified libertarians have for at least 20 years now seemed to have had an almost singular focus on age of consent laws and tax avoidance. It’s a magnet for the dregs of society.

Even if this was true, this is totally unrelated to the question of habeas corpus. "I don't like the ways in which the 9th amendment and the substantive due process clause have been applied" is a fine thing to believe, I guess. But there zero connection to any path to Trump establishing full blown fascism by saying we are under invasion and locking up his political enemies.

Of course it’s related. If “emanations from penumbras” is valid constitutional reasoning, it’s valid for everybody. It’s valid for the people who want to strike down state laws regulating morality, and it’s valid for the people who want to expedite deportation of illegal immigrants.

The Constitution says habeas may be suspended “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” “Rebellion” and “Invasion” are not textual prerequisites for suspending habeas corpus, but rather specific emanations from a broader penumbra encompassing threats to “public Safety.” Incursions into U.S. territory by illegal aliens and foreign gangs easily falls within that penumbra. Moreover, the word “invasion” isn’t necessarily limited to military invasions. It can refer to incursions by foreign elements, as in the phrase “invasive species.” That confirms that habeas corpus can be suspended in response to incursions onto U.S. soil by illegal aliens and gangs. And after all, the founders couldn’t have anticipated the rise of sophisticated international criminal organizations like MS13, which rise to the level of quasi-state actors. A small band of MS13 armed with modern weapons of war would be comparable to a military detachment armed with muskets in 1789.

And yes, while suspension of habeas is mentioned in Article I, it’s only listed as a negative limitation. It doesn’t say only Congress can suspend habeas. Just like how when Article II says “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America,” that doesn’t mean that Congress can’t also create independent agencies that exercise that power.

"require" implies that law enforcement and/or the courts are overwhelmed, as in the case of sustained open conflict that needs to be first put down and then sorted out later. A demented wanna-be dictator's frustration that it is too hard to disappear people out of civil society does not qualify.

Or are you saying that Trump's policies on this issue are also so incompetent that law enforcement has now become overwhelmed?

Is your claim seriously that all expansive readings of any part of the constitution, even those that expand the power of the state rather than limiting the power of the state, are somehow the fault of substantive due process?

The constitution considers various tradeoffs and draws the lines where it draws them. The constitution creates quite a powerful government in some respects, and limits government power in other respects. And while the federal government is one of enumerated powers, the state governments were always understood to have the general police power, limited only as set forth in their respective constitutions or federal constitutional provisions.

There is no meta-principle by which you can say expansive, results-oriented interpretations are acceptable to move the lines in one direction but not the other. If emanations from penumbras is a valid interpretive methodology it’s valid for everything.

Without habeas corpus, laws aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Without the interpretation of laws in the same spirit in which it was written, laws are never worth anything. No amount of verbiage and legalese can convey the spirit, so laws, in any of its material form, are already a folly.

ICE arrested the Mayor of Newark too. For protesting.

There’s really not much to say other than, they really shouldn’t.

A more accurate title would be "Trump Administration considering suspending habeas corpus". As much as they'd like to be they don't encompass the whole US government and, as the article says, the ability to suspend habeas corpus is something Congress can do, not the president or his aide.

The President suspending habeas corpus means that FBI, ATF, ICE and other agencies no longer act appropriately, as these agencies are directly in control of the President.

Sure, major and powerful agencies aren't "the US Government" in general. (There's still Congress and Courts). But that's still not a force of people you want to be messing with.

Suspending Trump's illegal order immediately should be the priority. Or otherwise preempting it before it gets too far. Commanding entire agencies to suspend parts of the Constitution unilaterally is not going to be good for us.

> the ability to suspend habeas corpus is something Congress can do, not the president or his aide

Congress isn't the group who has police forces and prisons to illegally detain you in. Its the President who owns and controls the police forces and prisons who can issue orders to ignore habeas corpus.

That is the actual title but posters are forced to change them or they get flagged immediately here.

The issue is that the president and executive in general don’t have the power to do a lot of things they have, like withhold appropriated money, but they do it anyway and don’t care if the courts reprimand them. So yes, in theory only congress, in practice it only depends on if the executive in general (e.g. FBI) acts as if it is suspended.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43941707

Understandable. The US cannot afford to lose its last colonies in the Middle East and in Asia, thus the need for state terrorism, censorship and indefinite detention of politically-active and class-aware proles.

So it begins

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