Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Unfounded confinement by U.S. raises red flags
By Owen Kennedy
Kansas State Collegian (Kansas State U.)
06/13/2007

(U-WIRE) MANHATTAN, Kan. — Here's a situation: a few years after graduating college, you, your spouse and your two children move to a new suburban town in the Midwest. You move because you were accepted into the master's program at a nearby college.

Seems like a harmless situation, right?

This is the story of Ali al-Marri, an immigrant from Qatar living in the United States. Al-Marri and his family moved to Peoria, Ill., in 2001 so he could work on his Ph.D.

All was well until December 2001, when al-Marri was arrested at his home. He was never charged and was only told he could be a threat to national security. In June 2003, he was moved to the Navy brig in Charlston, S.C., where he was kept in solitary confinement.

However, habeas corpus doesn't die so easily.

According to an Associated Press story, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that al-Marri and others who are said to be "enemy combatants" have the right to challenge their detention. The court ruled that the Military Commissions Act, passed last year, does not strip the accused of the writ of habeas corpus.

President Bush has said the loss of these Constitutional rights is a necessary tool in fighting the war on terror.

If al-Marri is a threat to national security, and indeed is an "enemy combatant," why aren't we putting him on trial? What evidence is there that would lead the Bush administration to believe he was such a threat?

I would think five years would be enough time to make a case against such a dangerous person.

Luckily, the court realized that the threat was not in the accused but in the accuser.

In its opinion, the court said such activity, if allowed to occur and continue, would have "disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country."

Amen.

This latest defeat for the president is another victory for the Constitution.

It is a scary day when a powerful executive can have anyone arrested and detained indefinitely with no charges ever having been given. This is something we see in movies, and it should not be something we see in our newspapers.

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