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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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TRIVIALIZING TERROR
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| Parent(s) |
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Dec 22, 2005 05:05pm |
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| Category | Blog Entry |
| News Date | Thursday, December 22, 2005 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Remember Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomber"? Last September, in a major victory for the Bush administration, the 4th Circuit Court ruled that the government could detain Padilla in a military brig indefinitely without charges even though he was a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil. It was an expansive ruling that gave the administration broad powers to treat suspected enemy combatants in virtually any way they wanted.
This should have made the government happy, right? Unfortunately, there was one hitch: this being the United States, wartime or no, Padilla could appeal his detention to the Supreme Court, and there was a chance that the Supremes might not be as accomodating as the conservative 4th Circuit.
So the Justice Department came up with a brainstorm: at the last minute, it asked the 4th Circuit to vacate the government's big victory and transfer Padilla to the civilian court system, where they planned to charge him not with being a dirty bomber, not even with planning to blow up apartment buildings, but with a humdrum variety of low-level conspiracy charges.
Today, the 4th Circuit announced that it was not amused: |
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