U.S. Government Says It Can Indefinitely Detain Anyone – Even U.S. Citizens
June 21st, 2019Via: The Intercept:
For over 17 years, Moath al-Alwi has been held at Guantánamo Bay without charge. A Yemeni citizen, al-Alwi is one of Guantánamo’s “forever prisoners,” those whom the U.S. government has not charged with a crime but is unwilling to release. On June 10, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in his case, the latest setback in al-Alwi’s long effort to obtain due process rights. Even though the court wouldn’t take al-Alwi up, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that it would only be a matter of time before the court had to grapple with the forever prisoners and the scope of the government’s power to hold them.
The Supreme Court rejection — and Breyer’s comments — briefly brought al-Alwi’s case back to national attention. Little noted, however, were the eyebrow-raising assertions that the government has made in this case about its powers to indefinitely detain not just al-Alwi, but anyone — including U.S. citizens.
In a filing with the Supreme Court this April, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that the United States can continue to hold al-Alwi without charging him, an argument that they haven’t made since the era of President George W. Bush. The lawyers also went out of their way to stress that even if he were a U.S. citizen, they would have the power to detain him indefinitely.
“There is no bar to this Nation’s holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” the filing read. Were al-Alwi a citizen, they argued, he “would pose the same threat of returning to the front during the ongoing conflict.” There were no “constitutional questions” raised by this hypothetical, they maintained.
FWIW:
It must be concluded that all persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection by those amendments [Fifth and Sixth] and that even aliens shall not be held to answer for a capital or other infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury, nor deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
—Wong Win vs US (1896)
All laws which are repugnant to the constitution are null and void.
—Marbury vs Madison, 1803
The right of the People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
—Fourth Amendment (The People are not defined by nationality.)