Seen on the newswires:
The Bush administration cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it believes is an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him, a divided federal appeals court ruled Monday. The court said sanctioning the indefinite detention of civilians would have “disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country.”[...]
“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.
And sanity prevails!
I don’t think anybody disputes that it’s a good idea to detain suspect terrorists before they do harm, assuming the suspicion is based on something more substantive than administrative paranoia.
However, one of the principles that our country is built on is that even the most vile individual is entitled to due process. In this case, you can’t just “disappear” the suspect; he/she is entitled to defend him/herself.
It’s been 5½ years since 9/11. You’d think that during those 5½ years legislation could have been passed, procedures implemented, and if necessary staffing changes made that would permit the preservation of civil rights without sacrificing national security.