The Bush administration on Wednesday reasserted its broad authority to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants, and it suggested that the Supreme Court consider two prominent cases at the same time. The Justice Department, in a brief filed with the court, said it would seek an expedited appeal of a federal appeals court decision last month in the case of Jose Padilla, jailed as an enemy combatant in 2002. The divided Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain an American citizen like Mr. Padilla who was arrested on American soil simply by declaring him an enemy combatant. Mr. Padilla has been held incommunicado at a military brig in South Carolina. American authorities say he plotted with operatives of Al Qaeda overseas to detonate a “dirty” radiological bomb in the United States. Full Story
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