For someone admittedly uneducated in this, Specter's question was my first as well: How can you guarantee not to suspend something without granting it? AND, isn't that guarantee not to suspend it in fact an implicit grant itself?
"How can you guarantee not to suspend something without granting it?"
THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GRANT RIGHTS!!!
We already have them and it's the governments job to protect them.
The Attorney General is WRONG and he starts to do this, I'll support the ACLU.
...and I f*&^%$ hate the ACLU!
The key to what Gonzalez is saying is an understanding of how we get our rights. All our rights come, not from the government, but from our Creator. The Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..."
So, you have the right to, say, turn on all the lights in your house. Government didn't grant you that right, however, the government can limit your right to turn on all your lights under certain circumstances - for instance, in the event of an air raid.
It's the same thing with habeus corpus. The government didn't give you the right of habeus corpus, but the Constitution provides that the government can, under certain circumstances, suspend that right.