Best thing I read all day…..

RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 1 - In a series of probing and sometimes testy exchanges with a government lawyer, two of three judges on a federal appeals court panel here indicated Thursday that they might not be prepared to accept the Bush administration’s claim that it has the unilateral power to detain people it calls enemy combatants.

The case was brought by Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who is the only person on the American mainland being held as an enemy combatant, at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Mr. Marri, a legal resident whom the government calls a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, was arrested in Peoria, Ill., on Dec. 12, 2001, where he was living with his family and studying computer science at Bradley University.

“What would prevent you from plucking up anyone and saying, A-You are an enemy combatant?- ” Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit asked the administration’s lawyer, David B. Salmons.

Mr. Salmons said the executive branch was entitled to make that judgment in wartime without interference from the courts. “A citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant,” he added.

Read more at the New York Times