Feds Urge Appeals Court to Overturn ‘Dangerous’ Indefinite-Detention Ruling

The Obama administration on Monday demanded a federal appeals court immediately halt a ruling blocking legislation authorizing the government to indefinitely detain without trial individuals, including U.S. citizens, who are deemed to “substantially support” groups “engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”

The government called the lower court’s ruling “dangerous” and a threat to national security. The court found the rule to be unconstitutional as it was so vague it could apply to U.S. citizens and journalists exercising their constitutional rights.

“The district court has entered a sweeping injunction, directly against the President and the Secretary of Defense, that strikes down as facially unconstitutional a federal statute relating to the United States’ power to detain individuals as part of the conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, with implications for ongoing military operations and causing potential harm to national security,” the administration said in an emergency appeal (.pdf) to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in new York.

The appeal by President Barack Obama attacks a ruling by lower court judge Katherine B. Forrest of New York, who in June and last week struck down the key terror-fighting feature of the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/indefinite-detention-appeal/

Why anyone would seek to defend that legislation is flabbergasting.

Wasn't anything learned during the shrub administration? Anything at all?