Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007The right to challenge one’s detention in front of an independent court is one of the most fundamental protections against arbitrary detention and other human rights violations. Over 750 men from more then 40 countries have been held at Guantanamo since the first transfer of detainees in January, 2002. Some have been in custody for more than five years, and none have ever been convicted of committing any crime. In June, 2004, The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Rasul v. Bush that detainees in Guantanamo did have access to federal courts. Subsequently, hundreds of detainees filed writs of habeas corpus, challenging the conditions and basis of their detention. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in the Rasul case, the Bush administration has been working through the courts and through Congress to keep any of these habeas cases from going forward. In December of 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA). The DTA stripped Guantanamo detainees of the right to file habeas cases in federal court. In June of 2006, in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court held that the DTA was not retroactive and therefore did not affect the hundreds of habeas cases in federal court. In October of 2006, the President signed the Military Commissions Act (MCA) into law, a bill that stripped Guantanamo detainees and others of fundamental human rights, including the right to habeas. Since the bill was signed into law, the US has moved to dismiss the case of Ali al-Marri, a US resident who has been held as an enemy combatant for almost four years. It argued that the MCA stripped any alien “unlawful enemy combatant” of the right to challenge their detention in court. A federal court also declined to hear a challenge to the new military commissions, stating a lack of jurisdiction due to the MCA. Not long after, a federal appeals court dismissed habeas petitions for Guantanamo detainees, holding that the MCA removed their jurisdiction to hear the cases. This ruling affects not only foreign nationals detained in Guantanamo, but could even impact the rights of legal permanent residents here in the United States. In order to reverse the damage done by the MCA, Senators Arlen Specter and |