adam wrote:

In the push to enact legislation dealing with the interrogation and prosecution of terror suspects, both the White House and dissident Republicans in the Senate intend to strip away the hallowed safeguard of habeas corpus for some noncitizens held in U.S. custody outside the United States.

habeas corpus entry in wikipedia click here
ok Abraham Lincoln suspended it during the Civil War, in only a part of the USA, but it realistic to say that al Qaeda is threat to the Union on the same level
I think not

Just because it happened before doeesn't make it right. The Constitution is an ideal. When are we going to live up to it? When is it going to make us make a hard choice instead of only living up to it when it's convenient? The spirit of this country was to try and create a society which could rise above in the face of adversity, not cower and rationalize abhorant behavior.