Don't give us this rally-round-Old-Glory bull.
Washington has - through its lies - killed far more Americans than al-Qaeda. From Lyndon Johnson's getting us deep into Nam by his falsified Gulf Of Tonkin "incident" that never happened (result: 58,000 Americans died) to the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments on unknowing and unconsenting black Americans, Washington has killed far more Americans than bin Laden could hope to.
Padilla is a punk and a traitor - but Washington used no standards of any kind in handling his case. (What specific reasons are there for which he is indefinitely detained as an "enemy combatant" while actually captured-on-the-battlefield Johnny Jihad gets a civilian trial?) (What specific standards mean an Arab of naturalized French citizenship who was the "20th skyjacker" - and would also "have killed thousands" - is entitled to a U.S. civilian trial, while Padilla isn't?)
If Padilla - as I believe - really was planning a dirty nuke for al-Qaeda, he was undoubtably guilty already of something under ordinary federal criminal law that he could have been prosecuted for and gotten a long sentence for. Conspiracy sounds virtually certain; violation of various federal antiterrorism statutes, too.
That has nothing to do with it. Rather, we as a society need to decide whether we are going to protect ourselves...or not.
Suppose, for a moment, that YOU are President. There's a chance...not a big chance, but a chance nonetheless...that a terrorist will will hundreds and make a radiological mess of a square mile in a major American city.
Will you act to save the people? Or not? And what about when the press asks what you knew, and when you knew it?
My choice is clear. I would stop the terrorists using any tool I could. I recognize that his is at variance with the ideals of others....