Of all of the rights our Constitution purports to protect, the liberty right of writ of Habeas Corpus is of such fundamental importance - so natural, that the Founders guaranteed against its encroachment in the original text of the Constitution. Other rights we often find as fundamental and natural as Habeas, such as free speech or religion, are guaranteed against encroachment in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was enacted 4 years after the enactment of the Constitution. The right of Habeas was so important that the people dared not risk four years without its guaranteed protection.

Despite this special status of Habeas in our Constitutional regime, our attorney general argued today before our Senate that not every citizen of (let alone individual within) the United States possesses this most natural of rights:

Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn’t say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

So, some of us neither have, nor are “assured” (by the state, I presume) certain natural rights and liberties? I guess our legal and political culture has been dead wrong for at least 231 years, or for at least 318 years, if not for at least 907 years.