WASHINGTON, May 24, 2008
Can Anyone Be An "Enemy Combatant"?
"Sleeper Cell" Case Questions Bush Authority To Detain U.S. Residents Indefinitely Without Trial
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Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is a U.S. resident being held in a South Carolina military brig. He has no lawyer. He has not been brought to trial. And the Bush administration claims it has the power to keep him there as long as it wants. (GETTY)
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Timeline In Terror's Wake A look at the major developments following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is a U.S. resident being held in a South Carolina military brig; he is the only enemy combatant held on U.S. soil. That makes his case very different.
Al-Marri's capture six years ago might be the Bush administration's biggest domestic counterterrorism success story. Authorities say he was an al Qaeda sleeper agent living in middle America, researching poisonous gasses and plotting a cyberattack.
To justify holding him, the government claimed a broad interpretation of the president's wartime powers, one that goes beyond warrantless wiretapping or monitoring banking transactions. Government lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely.
There is little middle ground between the two sides in al-Marri's case, which is before a federal appeals court in Virginia. The government says the president needs this power to keep the nation safe. Al-Marri's lawyers say that as long as the president can detain anyone he wants, nobody is safe.
A Qatari national, al-Marri came to the U.S. with his wife and five children on Sept. 10, 2001 - one day before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He arrived on a student visa seeking a master's degree in computer science from Bradley University, a small private school in Peoria, Illinois.
The government says he had other plans.
According to court documents citing multiple intelligence sources, al-Marri spent months in al Qaeda training camps during the late 1990s and was schooled in the science of poisons. The summer before al-Marri left for the United States, he allegedly met with Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The two al Qaeda leaders decided al-Marri would make a perfect sleeper agent and rushed him into the U.S. before Sept. 11, the government says.
A computer specialist, al-Marri was ordered to wreak havoc on the U.S. banking system and serve as a liaison for other al Qaeda operatives entering this country, according to a court document filed by Jeffrey Rapp, a senior member of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
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According to Rapp, al-Marri received up to $13,000 for his trip, plus money to buy a laptop, courtesy of Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who is suspected of helping finance the Sept. 11 attacks.Once you allow the president to lock people up for years or even life without trial, there's no going back.
Lawyer Jonathan HafetzA week after the attacks, Congress unanimously passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force. It gave President George W. Bush the power to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against anyone involved in planning, aiding or carrying out the attacks.
The FBI interviewed al-Marri that October and arrested him in December as part of the Sept. 11 investigation. He rarely had been attending classes and was failing in school, the government said.
When investigators looked through his computer files, they found information on industrial chemical suppliers, sermons by bin Laden, how-to guides for making hydrogen cyanide and information about chemicals labeled "immediately dangerous to life or health," according to Rapp's court filing. Phone calls and e-mails linked al-Marri to senior al Qaeda leaders.
In early 2003, he was indicted on charges of credit card fraud and lying to the FBI. Like anyone else in the United States, he had constitutional rights. He could question government witnesses, refuse to testify and retain a lawyer.
On June 23, 2003, President Bush declared al-Marri an enemy combatant, which stripped him of those rights. Mr. Bush wrote that al-Marri possessed intelligence vital to protect national security. In his jail cell in Peoria, however, he could refuse to speak with investigators.
A military jail allowed more options. Free from the constraints of civilian law, the military could interrogate al-Marri without a lawyer, detain him without charge and hold him indefinitely. Courts have agreed the president has wide latitude to imprison people captured overseas or caught fighting against the U.S. That is what the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is for.
But al-Marri was not in Guantanamo Bay.
"The president is not a king and cannot lock people up forever in the United States based on his say-so," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer who represents al-Marri and other detainees. "Today it's Mr. al-Marri. Tomorrow it could be you, a member of your family, someone you know. Once you allow the president to lock people up for years or even life without trial, there's no going back."
Glenn Sulmasy, a national security fellow at Harvard University, said the issue comes down to whether the nation is at war. Soldiers would not need warrants to launch a strike against invading troops. So would they need a warrant to raid an al Qaeda safe house in a U.S. suburb?
Sulmasy says no. That is how Congress wrote the bill and "if they feel concerned about civil liberties, they can tighten up the language," he said.
That would require the politically risky move of pushing legislation to make it harder for the president to detain suspected terrorists inside the U.S.
By Matt APuzzo
© MMVIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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BUSH and Cheney! Enemies of America and Americans!
"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened".- Joseph Stalin
"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death". - Adolph Hitler
"...the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi leader
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis
Perhaps Bush himself said it best;
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there''s no question about it." G.W. Bush
Source: Business Week Online, "A Gentleman''s "C" for W," Richard S. Dunham, July 30, 2001
Ann Coulter waxed eloquent..."My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
I am interested in the contrast between the response to domestic terrorism - Oklahoma City, and foreign terroism - 9/11. Domestic terrorism did not seem to undo America as foreign terrorism has.
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for a terrorist ..or those criminaly minded..YES A LOT HAVE CHANGED
When did we begin, exactly, to deny rights to those who COULD be innocent? If there is a preponderence of evidence for guilt, then a jury will decide, as our nation of laws has functioned since its inception.
We were taught of a VERY different America in middle and high school American history and civics.
Should we teach our children the new reality in class? Or should we go back to what got us to the year 2000?
Just some questions. My, have things changed DRASTICALLY in 7 years.
after all we had seen in the past...i would say yes..if they can control a camel..they would shove bombs up its arse and use it as a suicide bomber..
Sulmasy says no. That is how Congress wrote the bill and "if they feel concerned about civil liberties, they can tighten up the language," he said.
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And that is the singular most important reason that our Congress has been a screw-up for eight straight years: They failed to understand that they are dealing with an Administration that has no concept of honor.
This Administration is NOT a group of people with whom you can seal a deal "with a handshake and a smile".
By failing to nail down the parameters of the behavior that they - and America - would permit from this Administration with iron-clad Law, Congress enabled this Administration to steal a mile every single time that they only intended to give them an inch.
I''d further note that you can look at Gonzales and other examples from this Administration, and quickly determine that the greatest internal threat to America today is the legal profession.
I mean, c''mon...a whole Presidency whose every shady move is accomplished by using lawyers to find them loopholes in the Law?
[Posted by BagdadsHere at 08:34 AM : May 25, 2008]
well ... if you give him a guitar and put him in front of a microphone ... he''d could pass for a country music award nominee ... without his hat on.
Translation: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
we have plenty of ''specialists'' already here to wreak havoc on the banking system ... we''re doing just fine w/ that ourselves. we''ll let them know when we need their help.
[Posted by studio41 at 12:30 AM : May 25, 2008]
not much a student of history ... are we?
No one should have the power to just take someone and lock them up in the U.S.A. After all, is this not the type of governments we are now fighting against?
Posted by studio41 at 12:30 AM : May 25, 2008
You are entitled to your opinion, however, you are a very foolish person considering increasing evidence to the contrary. Please think more about it again and again until you realize how foolish you really are.
These people do not DESERVE to be called Americans. They are ignorant cowards and children.
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