'Enemy Combatants' Cases Go Before Supreme Court

A former Chicago gang member and the son of an oil industry worker from Saudi Arabia -- both American citizens -- are the subjects of the Supreme Court's most far-reaching review to date of individual rights and liberties in a time of terrorism and war.

The court is hearing arguments Wednesday in back-to-back cases -- relating to Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla -- in an effort to address the debate over national security versus civil liberties during the war on terrorism. Both men are suspects in terrorism cases.

A Bush administration lawyer argued Wednesday the president has broad authority to detain terrorism suspects as "unlawful enemy combatants" without trial -- to keep them from returning to "the field of battle."

But a lawyer for one of the Americans argued Bush has gone too far by jailing citizens indefinitely and denying them access to lawyers and courts.

One of the justices asked if the president was granted detention power when Congress approved the use of military force shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The administration's lawyer argued Congress signed off on the broader powers.

The lawyer replied that Congress didn't intend for "widespread, indefinite detentions." He said if that were the case, Americans could be locked up all over the country without their cases being heard.

The Bush administration won its arguments in lower courts in the Hamdi case but lost a federal appeals court fight in the Padilla case.

"The conditions to the President holding an enemy combatant are that there be a war that the President is conducting lawfully. That the courts can address. After that, if the war is being conducted in part on US soil, and combatants are found here, it is a military matter, not a judicial one."

No it's not. If the men are accused and are CITIZENS, they DESERVE the Constitutional right to face their accuser IN A COURT OF LAW. Both men are, by the GOVERNMENT'S own definition, legal US citizens and have rights as citizens to legal representation and their day in court.

If the President or AG wants to change that, there are thousands of "citizens" born to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS who are NOW afforded the same rights these two deserve, based upon the same law. I hardly think the POTUS or AG will propose any changes to end that situation.

America cannot afford to become as Stalinist as the former USSR or the PRC, and although this is one small stepping stone along that pathway, the next leap may cost you and/or me more of our "freedom" than we can ever regain without ourselves becoming "combatants". For that reason alone, I'm not willing to concede the President's Admin is proceeding correctly, as every power ever given the government has been expanded and redefined as the government saw fit and not as the governed desired.

It's a war. Get that through your head

From the oral arguments last week.

JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS Mr. Olson, supposing the war had ended, could you continue to detain these people in Guantánamo, and would there then be jurisdiction?

MR. OLSON We believe that there would not be jurisdiction.

JUSTICE STEVENS So the existence of the war is really irrelevant to the legal system, is it not? . . .

MR. OLSON It doesn't depend upon that, Justice Stevens, but it's even more forceful and more compelling. . . .

It will be interesting to see if Olson holds this same argument for US citizens seized on US soil. That would in essence mean that the President (whoever he is) has the power to hold US citizens indefinitely and without charges whether OR NOT the US is at war.

That argument you're talking about has to do with jurisdiction, and is a separate issue. US courts don't have jurisdiction over prisoners held in Guantanamo, or most activities that take place outside the US. Jurisdiction of US courts is set forth in statutes, except for a few specificied situations in the Constitution (disputes between states, etc.)

That these two are citizens doesn't obscure the issue, which is that a soldier fighting for a foreign force against the US may be killed or captured, and if captured, may be held for the duration of the war, and his status is not reviewable by the US court system. Period.

Why don't you explain to me why the Constitution mentions treason as a crime specifically.

Its presence contradicts your thoery.

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