Va. Appellate Panel Hears Arguments in Padilla Case

Lower Court Had Ruled That Man Held Three Years in Navy Brig Should Be Tried or Set Free

By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 20, 2005; Page A09

RICHMOND, July 19 -- A top government attorney declared Tuesday that, in the war on terror, the United States is a battlefield, and therefore President Bush has the authority to detain enemy combatants indefinitely in this country.

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement's comments came as a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is considering whether to overturn a lower court ruling that Jose Padilla should be charged with a crime or released. In 2002, Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert, was taken into custody by the military and has been held without trial since.
....
The judges were most concerned with how to handle Padilla in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last year on Yaser Esam Hamdi. Hamdi, also a U.S. citizen, was captured by the military with Taliban forces in Afghanistan and placed in a Navy brig in Norfolk. The Supreme Court ruled that his detention was lawful but that he was entitled to a hearing to challenge the allegations against him.

But moments after Clement began his oral argument, Luttig interrupted to say that "arguably, Judge O'Connor in 'Hamdi' limited that law to the battlefield detention, did she not?" Padilla was picked up at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on a warrant from a federal court in New York and only later was turned over to the military.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071901023.html

If Our Dear Leader proclaims someone an enemy combatant, there's no jury trial, no habeas corpus, no defense ... and "detention" indefinitely, sometimes the rest of your life. It can now happen to anyone. The last vestiges of LIMITS on government power are dissolving as we watch. It's fucking incomprehensible to me we're not tarring and feathering these fascist fucks!

When the "enemy" loses rights, we all lose rights.

Durned Patriot Act.