Abstract

'Bad Guys'

The author comments on the US government's detention of US citizens classified as enemy combatants for indefinite periods without charge. On April 20, Solicitor General Ted Olson told the Supreme Court that the federal courts could not question the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" held at Guantanamo Bay because as foreigners outside our borders, the detainees have no constitutional rights and no access to courts. When the government stands up on April 28 to defend its detentions of two US citizens--Yaser Hamdi, allegedly captured in Afghanistan, and José Padilla, arrested at O' Hare Airport--as enemy combatants, it won't argue that they have no constitutional rights. Citizens are indisputably protected by the Constitution. But if the government's view prevails, US citizens might as well have no rights, because the President will effectively have unilateral authority to hold them indefinitely without trial on his own say-so. The Bush Administration initially contended that the courts are barred from hearing the claims even of US citizens held as "enemy combatants." According to the Administration, the courts may at most ask whether, solely on the basis of the government's submissions, the President had "some evidence" to label a person an enemy combatant. But here's the rub: Who's to say that Hamdi and Padilla are enemy combatants at all? Thus far, we have only the President's word and Mobbs's untested affidavits. The power to lock up human beings indefinitely cannot be left to George W. Bush's unilateral determination that they are "bad guys."