From: Gary Britt 

You state this incorrectly.  This person was a legal resident of the USA
who has basically same constitutional rights as a citizen.  This ruling
applies to citizens and legal residents picked up in this country at or
near their homes and not currently engaged in terrorist activity.  It
doesn't apply to non-citizens, non-legal residents, and especially doesn't
apply to persons picked up outside the USA.

It was a 2-1 decision so 1/3 of the court thought Bush had made his case.
So Bush's position was certainly a reasonable one if not a winning one.

I have limited knowledge about this case but from the descriptions I've
read so far, I don't find this decision offensive.  I may even agree with
it.

Gary Britt

Rich Gauszka wrote:
> 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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