Though some of the changes simply involved administrative regulations, the Patriot Act’s overall effect was to erode the great pillars of liberty, such as habeas corpus , the right to recourse to an independent court whenever the state deprives an individual of his freedom. From an early date, the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba became the symbol of something unheard of: the arrest without trial of “illegal combatants” who are deprived of all human rights.