In a victory for tyranny and injustice, a federal appeals court ruled
the president has the power to arrest American citizens and imprison
them indefinitely without charging them at whim.

Judges of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond,
Virginia, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the president can legally, by
simply labeling an individual an "enemy combatant," imprison anyone,
citizen or not, without due process for months, years, decades, or
indefinitely.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an earlier three-judge
panel's decision which ruled that the government lacked the power to
detain Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar legally in the United States
on a student visa, who had been charged with credit card fraud and
making false statements as part of the 9/11 investigation. Keep in
mind the Bush administration is not accusing al-Marri of having any
connections to al-Qaeda or the Taliban or fighting against U.S.
forces. He is accused of being involved in an unproven terrorist
plot, which he denies.

That didn't stop the judge who was the swing vote in the matter,
William Traxler, from opinionating in the ruling (page 28):

As pointed out by my colleagues, the Constitution generally affords
all persons detained by the government the right to be charged and
tried in a criminal proceeding for suspected wrongdoing, and it
prohibits the government from subjecting individuals arrested inside
the United States to military detention unless they fall within
certain narrow exceptions. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S.
739, 755 (1978) ("In our society liberty is the norm, and detention
prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception.")
The detention of enemy combatants during military hostilities,
however, is such an exception. If properly designated an enemy
combatant pursuant to legal authority of the President, such persons
may be detained without charge or criminal proceedings "for the
duration of the relevant hostilities." Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S.
507, 519-521 (2004).

Judge Traxler's attitude toward vesting the president with extensive
tyrannical powers is astounding as is his understanding and
interpretation of the law. He continued with an even scarier
statement [Dec. at 62]:

The President has cautioned us that "[t]he war on terror we fight
today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and
I have turned our duties over to others." Pres. George W. Bush,
State of the Union Address (Jan. 23, 2007). Unlike detention for the
duration of a traditional armed conflict between nations, detention
for the length of a "war on terror" has no bounds.

And the scariest of all, this opinion [Dec. at 98]:

Under the current state of our precedents, it is likely that the
constitutional rights our court determines exist, or do not exist, for
al-Marri will apply equally to our own citizens under like
circumstances. This means simply that protections we declare to be
unavailable under the Constitution to al-Marri might likewise be
unavailable to American citizens, and those rights which protect him
will protect us as well.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is therefore advocating a
circumvention of basic constitutional rights by the president of the
United States and the courts. And this power, once invested will
carry forward to all subsequent presidents and courts. They have
determined that they will be the "deciders," specifying who will and
who will not be afforded due process under constitutional law.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon has a great analysis of the case and says it
better than anyone:

At least with regard to individuals detained on U.S. soil, the Bush
administration has exercised these definitively tyrannical powers in
only a handful of cases two U.S. citizens (Hamdi and Padilla) and
one non-citizen in the U.S. legally (al-Marri). But what the
administration has done is asserted those powers generally, and
embarked upon a strategy to ensure that they are institutionalized.
Yesterday's ruling likely (though not certain) to be reviewed by the
U.S. Supreme Court is but another step down the path of un-American
radicalism we've been traversing.

Greenwald points out our Founding Fathers warned against investing a
president with such powers: "The very core of liberty secured by our
Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from
indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive," something they
were only too familiar with.

"George Bush will likely leave office with this particular tyrannical
power infrequently exercised but nonetheless vigorously asserted,
defended, and close to established," Greenwald says. "This is yet
another step in the creeping extremism of the last seven years like
torture and warrantless eavesdropping, this power (allowing the
President to imprison U.S. citizens in military brigs with no
charges) is one that was until quite recently inconceivable, but is
now a defining part of how our Government operates."

The mournful tolling of a funeral bell can already be heard as it
sounds the approaching death of freedom that is unless the American
people demand that Congress reign in the creeping totalitarianism that
is rapidly destroying our once free republic.

Shamrock's comment: I'd never thought I'd live to see the day
when liberty and freedoms in Amerika were 'legally' denied its citizens!