Throwing Away the Key

Here's an important reminder that Congress clearly never intended the Patriot Act to be a broad sanction for rounding up terror suspects without charges and detaining them indefinitely as a guard against terrorism. Money quote:

Long story short, in the weeks following 9/11, the Bush administration pushed hard for the authorization to use military force domestically and later for express statutory authority to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without process. And although Congress was under enormous political pressure to act quickly and was clearly willing to rubberstamp most of the administration’s requests, it pushed back and ultimately rejected the administration’s efforts on both occasions. The AUMF did not authorize military force within the United States and the Patriot Act provided the government with only the authority to detain “terrorist aliens” like al-Marri for up to 7 days without process, at which point it must commence either deportation or criminal proceedings (though, interestingly, a never-yet-utilized provision of the Act arguably allows the government to continue holding “terrorists aliens” more or less indefinitely, subject to certain certifications).

Despite this clear legislative history, the government’s lawyers now claim that, in passing the AUMF, Congress granted the administration powers that it quite clearly did not intend to grant, including powers it specifically rejected during the debate over the Patriot Act, which began almost as soon as the AUMF was passed. Fortunately, the Fourth Circuit saw this argument for what it was, a particularly brazen example of revisionist history.

Even this, of course, was limited to immgrants. Jose Padilla was a US citizen, arrested on American soil, and detained without charge (with charges of torture) for years.