Bush Seeks Quick Ruling on U.S. Detainees (basic legal/constitutional ?'s)

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3637147,00.html

Bush Seeks Quick Ruling on U.S. Detainees

Saturday January 17, 2004 9:46 PM
By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to decide by summer whether national security justifies detention of American citizens indefinitely and without charges. The administration filed papers Friday asking the high court to take on the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and convert to Islam arrested in May 2002 in an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb."
<snip>

The government separately asked a federal appeals court in New York to suspend a court order for Padilla's release from a military brig where he is held incommunicado and without access to his lawyer.
The Supreme Court already has agreed to hear a similar case testing the legal rights of American citizens caught overseas in the war on terrorism. The Bush administration has asked that the two cases be combined.

Yaser Esam Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, while Padilla was arrested on U.S. soil. Lawyers for both men claim their treatment is unconstitutional. Hearing the cases together would simultaneously address the rights of U.S. citizens captured abroad and at home. The cases raise basic legal and constitutional questions about the breadth of executive power and the rights of terror suspects to defend themselves in court. They also represent the most significant civil liberties issue to reach the high court since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that President Bush does not have the authority to declare Padilla an enemy combatant and hold him in open-ended military custody. <snip>

Both men are classified as enemy combatants, a term the Bush administration contends means they are ineligible for ordinary legal protections. Both men have lawyers acting on their behalf, but one has never met his client and the other has not been allowed to see him for a year and a half.<snip>

The case is Rumsfeld v. Padilla.

[Malva Zebrina]

1. Maybe Cheney and Scalia are discussing this over duck soup

Hitler liked to brag that everything he did was legal. What is the hurry here anyhow?

[Ready4Change]

2. This boggles my mind.

This is clearly covered by the 5th and 6th amendments, and the answer is that the detainment of Hamdi and Padilla, without charge or legal consul, is 100% UNconstitutional.

Period. (link to Bill of Rights, ratified 1791)

For the life of me I can't figure out why supposedly red blooded conservatives haven't abandoned all support of this administration over this one, single issue. It is clearly a direct assault on our Constitution, a flame set to the very fabric of our republic.

[jpgray]

3. We do this every couple decades, it seems

Internment, Alien & Sedition in WWI, Civil War, and so on, and so on.