Blow 2 to tyranny...!

A divided federal appeals court in New York ruled yesterday that President Bush lacked the authority to detain indefinitely a United States citizen arrested on American soil on suspicion of terrorism simply by declaring him "an enemy combatant."

Within hours, a second federal appeals court, based in San Francisco, also in a divided ruling, declared that the administration's policy of imprisoning some 660 noncitizens captured in the Afghan war on a naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without access to United States legal protections was unconstitutional as well as a violation of international law.

The twin blows to the underpinnings of the administration's elaborate legal strategy erected after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks make it all the more likely that the Supreme Court will have the final say on matters that the administration had argued did not belong in the courts in the first place.

Of course, before we start celebrating too heartily we should remember that the same Supreme Court that annointed Bush president has agreed to definitively decide the issue of the Guantánamo Bay detainees. Court watchers say the Supremes will likely add the question of Padillo's fate to their docket.

Complete story here.