Quote of the day

"The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist. " -Winston Churchill, in a telegram to Herbert Morrison November 21, 1943

I've quoted this before, but amidst all the hysterics of "radical activism" from the Supreme Court for upholding the nearly 800 year old foundation of western democracy - habeus corpus - I thought it might be fitting to recall what conservative icon Winston Churchill had to say in the middle of World War II about habeus corpus.

For more on the Supreme Court's ruling, see Balkinization which has been running a series of informative posts on the subject.

"The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume." -Thomas Jefferson to A. H. Rowan, 1798