Court to Rule on 'Enemy Combatant' Label

[peterh]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3399166,00.html

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals judge said Monday it would be ``a sea change'' in the Constitution to allow the Bush administration to designate a U.S. citizen suspected in an alleged dirty bomb plot as an enemy combatant.
In a critical showdown between the government and civil rights lawyers, two members of a three-judge federal panel seemed hesitant to embrace the government's reasoning for why Jose Padilla, 33, should be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer and without being charged.
Padilla, a Muslim, is accused of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a ``dirty'' bomb,'' which uses conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials. The former Chicago gang member was taken into custody in May 2002, and has spent most of the time since then in a naval brig in Charleston, S.C.

Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. said he believed the power to designate a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant rested with Congress, rather than the president.





The cynical side of me says there will be a bill introduced in Congress in the very near future and the constitutionality of said law will then be tested in the S.C. much much later……in the mean time…..

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. Well, this is a small...

good first step. yes, I have no doubt that some buttwad will try to put forth a bill, that will then have to go to the USSC.

But if thats' what it takes to get this crap knocked down once and for all, so be it. I think the holding of people -- here & in GITMO -- without charges, trial or presentation is one of the biggest shames Bush has brought on our country.

[teryang]

2. I don't think a bill

...can change a persons status.

[The Stranger]

3. That would constitute a Bill of Attainder,

which is specifically proscribed under the U.S. Constitution.

If Congress were to pass it, it would be struck down as unconstitutional.

[Say_What]

4. ``This new power government is looking for is entirely unprecedented,''

people are waking up--it's about flippin' time. I hope they rule on it and don't send it back to South Carolina.