The Bush administration has gone too far with its detention of an American citizen accused of being a terrorist and the questionable treatment of prisoners.

A federal appeals court ruled last week that Jose Padilla, who has been held without access to a lawyer and denied contact with his family since May 2002, is being illegally detained. The government now has fewer than 30 days to release Padilla or charge him with a crime.

Called an al-Qaida operative by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Padilla has been held as an “enemy combatant.” He is accused of being part of a plot to explode a dirty bomb in the United States.

Al-Qaida continues to threaten the United States and its interests around the world. But the threat does not justify actions that undermine constitutionally mandated civil liberties.

The message from the court is clear. The president cannot lock people up and throw away the key.

Wrote the majority for the court: “The president, acting alone, possesses no inherent constitutional authority to detain American citizens seized within the United States, away from the zone of combat, as enemy combatants.”

The Padilla detention is just one example of a disturbing trend of actions taken as a reaction to the attacks of Sept. 11.

In addition to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the New York Times reports that an elaborate and secretive global detention system is being run by the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency. Enemies of the state – al-Qaida terrorists, members of the Taliban, Iraqis and who knows who else – disappear into system.

But abuses are not limited to secret prisons in far-flung places.

A Justice Department investigation has uncovered videotapes and other evidence that employees of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons abused foreign nationals who were rounded up after Sept. 11. They were thrown into walls, threatened, stripped naked and restrained for long periods. According to the Washington Post, none of the detainees has been charged with a terrorism-related crime.

When some prison guards are emboldened enough to abuse suspects when they know they are being videotaped, what does that mean for detainees held without scrutiny?

We are not sympathetic to the militants killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the terrorists who turned passenger jets into missiles and their allies.

But the ugliness and hatred of war and terrorism do not excuse a constitutional democracy from the requirements of the law.


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