Use these points to educate family, friends and community members or as background for your letter-to-the-editor, episode screening, or media alert.

Habeas corpus, which protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment, was considered by our nation’s founders to be so crucial to guaranteeing our basic rights that they specifically enshrined it in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

Restore habeas corpus in the United States:

• Make it clear that the Constitution is the law of the land and that no president has the power to decide arbitrarily who is an enemy combatant and who can be held indefinitely without charge.
• Ensure that no one will be prosecuted based on evidence obtained through torture and that no president can unilaterally decide what constitutes torture and abuse.

Support from the experts:

• Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 84
  "The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex post facto laws, are perhaps greater securities to liberty…than any [the Constitution] contains."