JOSE PADILLA: Charge him or release him?

[mburbank]

He's the alleged dirty bomber, and how they classified him as an 'enemy combatant' is exactly the problem. First of all, 'enemy combatant' is, I think, an invention of the administration, and has no legally recognized precident. The justice department references laws regarding pirates, but most of this stuff relies on the participants being stateless.

His status as enemy combatant (and I think this applies to all enemy combatants) has simply been declared by the executive branch. I'm not aware any evidence had to be presented to any other branch of government, so what it comes down to is you are an enemy combatant if the executive branch says you are, an folks should believe the executive branch would not abuse this power because they say they wouldn't.

To my mind, this is a power decent folks who understood what America and Democracy are wouldn't be asking for in the first place. It's a power usually reserved for dictators.