Section 9
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
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.(1)
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Section 10
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
(1) Habeas corpus (more fully, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum) is a Latin term for a centuries-old legal protection. The writ of habeas corpus guarantees that a person who has been detained (arrested) has the right to go before a court and have the court decide whether the detainment or imprisonment is legal.
President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in Maryland on April 27, 1861, two weeks after the hostilitiesat Fort Sumter.
Lincoln could look out his window at the White House and see Robert E. Lee’s plantation in Virginia. He was also facing a rebellion of so-called Peace Democrats in Maryland, meaning there was a real chance that Washington would be surrounded and a real threat that the White House would be captured.
On Lincoln’s order, federal troops arrested Baltimore’s mayor and chief of police, as well as several members of the Maryland legislature, who were jailed so that they couldn’t vote to secede from the Union.
Since the Middle Ages, habeas corpus—“You should produce the body”—has been the principal means in Anglo-American jurisprudence by which prisoners can challenge their incarceration.
In habeas-corpus proceedings, the government is required to bring a prisoner—the body—before a judge and provide a legal rationale for his continued imprisonment. The concept was so well established at the time of the founding of the American Republic that the framers of the Constitution allowed suspensions of the right only under narrow circumstances.
Congress passed, and then President Bush signed, a law known as the Military Commissions Act of 2006, banning the four hundred and thirty detainees held at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, and other enemy combatants, from filing writs of habeas corpus.
Recently there has been talk of military commissions or tribunals for prisoners, which could, of course, result in the imposition of the death penalty.
In 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with relatively little attention from the media. The NDAA was enacted to empower the U.S. military to fight the war on terror. But buried in this law are two provisions (Sections 1021 and 1022) that authorize the indefinite military detention, without charge or trial, of any person labeled a “belligerent”―including an American citizen.
Under Section 1021 anyone who has committed a “belligerent act,” can be detained indefinitely, without charges or trial, as a “suspected terrorist.”
But who is most likely to have the NDAA used against them? It depends on how you define the word terrorist.
The Department of Homeland Security said that individuals or organizations “reverent of individual liberty” and “suspicious of centralized federal authority” pose a threat.
Are American civilians currently being detained under NDAA?
We don’t know because:
- The government does not need a warrant to detain you.
- The government does not have to produce any record of your detention.
- The military, unlike the police, does not need to take record of your arrest.
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(c) 2018