From: "Rich Gauszka" 

So much for the Bushies valued belief that the military can seize civilians
and imprison them indefinitely ignoring their constitution rights


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PMQCN80&show_article=1

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Bush administration cannot use new anti-terrorism
laws to keep U.S. residents locked up indefinitely without charging them, a
divided federal appeals court said Monday. The ruling was a harsh rebuke of
one of the central tools the administration believes it has to combat
terror.

"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to
seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them
'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the
constitution-and the country," the court panel said.

In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that
the federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip Ali al-Marri, a legal
U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in
court. It ruled the government must allow al-Marri to be released from
military detention.

The government intends to ask the full 4th Circuit to hear the case,
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.

"The President has made clear that he intends to use all available
tools at his disposal to protect Americans from further al-Qaida attack,
including the capture and detention of al-Qaida agents who enter our
borders," Boyd said in a statement.

Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in
Charleston, S.C., since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since
his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Ill., where he moved with
his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks to study for a master's degree at Bradley University.

"This is a landmark victory for the rule of law and a defeat for
unchecked executive power," al-Marri's lawyer, Jonathan Hafetz, said
in a statement. "It affirms the basic constitutional rights of all
individuals-citizens and immigrants-in the United States."

The court said its ruling doesn't mean al-Marri should be set free.
Instead, he can be returned to the civilian court system and tried on
criminal charges.

"But the government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military
detention," the opinion said. "For in the United States, the
military cannot seize and imprison civilians-let alone imprison them
indefinitely."

Al-Marri is currently the only U.S. resident held as an enemy combatant
within the U.S.

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