A former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert, Padilla was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in May 2002. A month later, he was designated an "enemy combatant" by President Bush and sent to a naval brig in South Carolina.

More U.S. news
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit will convene in Richmond to consider a question with vast implications for civil liberties and the fight against terrorism: whether in the absence of criminal charges the president can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

Federal prosecutors assert that Bush not only had the authority to order Padilla's detention but that such power is essential to preventing attacks.

"In the war against terrorists of global reach, as the Nation learned all too well on Sept. 11, 2001, the territory of the United States is part of the battlefield," prosecutors argued in legal briefs. The government contends that Padilla trained at al Qaeda camps and was planning to blow up apartment buildings in the United States.

Attorneys for Padilla, joined by a host of civil liberties organizations, say that his detention is illegal. If not constrained by the courts, they argue, it could lead to the military being allowed to hold anyone, from protesters to people who check out what the government considers the wrong books from the library.

‘A grade-school civics thing’
"Once you open the door to a power like that, where does it end?" Andrew Patel, one of Padilla's attorneys, asked in an interview. "There is a certain bedrock way we do things as Americans. If we believe someone has done something bad, we take them to court and prove it. It's a grade-school civics thing."

The debate has featured the unusual spectacle of former attorney general Janet Reno, whose Justice Department prosecuted major terrorism cases during the Clinton administration, weighing in legally on behalf of someone the Bush administration calls a notorious terrorist. She and several other former Justice officials filed a brief supporting Padilla's effort to challenge his detention.

The Bush administration "claims a virtually unlimited right to ignore Congress's judgment about what powers are necessary to protect the country against terrorist attack," the brief said, arguing that Padilla could be charged under a variety of laws in the criminal justice system.

Padilla is one of two U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The other, Yaser Esam Hamdi, was released and flown to Saudi Arabia last year after the Supreme Court upheld the government's power to detain him but said he could challenge that detention in U.S. courts.

Hamdi's and Padilla's cases are two among several recent ones that have raised the most significant wartime civil liberties issues since World War II and that are gradually clarifying presidential powers to fight the war on terrorism. But there is a key difference between the two: Hamdi was captured on a battlefield in Afghanistan with forces loyal to that country's former Taliban rulers, while Padilla was arrested in the United States.

With the Justice Department seeking to extend the detention power it won in the Hamdi case to U.S. citizens captured domestically, legal experts are closely watching the appeals court's decision, along with a likely Supreme Court review after that.

"I think Padilla is mighty important. This is the case that really matters most," said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University.

The government originally described Padilla as plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" but has since focused on allegations that he planned to blow up apartment buildings by filling them with natural gas.

CONTINUED

1 | 2 | Next >

Discuss Story On Newsvine
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh
Email
Instant Message
Print