The Bush administration is seeking to expand the powers granted to it by Congress, including the spineless Democrats who refused to filibuster the detainee bill. Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on “suspicion of terrorism” and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees.
In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States. So this could be, well, anyone the Bush administration defines as a terrorist since under the Patriot Act and the Detainee the President has assumed the right to make this decision independently of any Court.
Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, was arrested in 2001 while studying in the United States. He has been labeled an "enemy combatant” which under the recently passed detainee bill strips foreigners of the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.
Al-Marri is the first detainee arrested inside the United States to be subjected to the new law which radically expands the power of the executive branch and essentially does away with the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments to the Constitution. Back in the pre-fascist America days aliens usually had the right to contest their imprisonment, such as when they were arrested on immigration violations or for other crimes.
"It's pretty stunning that any alien living in the United States can be denied this right," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for Al-Marri. "It means any non-citizen, and there are millions of them, can be whisked off at night and be put in detention."
It took exactly one month for the government to expand their interpretation of the law to include people like Al-Marri. How long before they expand it to include you?
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