December 18, brought some good news for those among us who thought the judicial branch of government was asleep. An independent judiciary is alive and well in two federal circuits--the Second Circuit (New York) and the Ninth Circuit (California). Both appeals courts rejected the Bush administration's claims that President Bush has unlimited power to trample the civil rights of Americans and prisoners in its control under the guise of fighting a global war on "terror."

The Second Circuit ruled in the case of Jose Padilla that President Bush wrongly ordered his detention as an enemy combatant. The opinion found that there was no legal basis for the presidential act; in fact, it found law to the contrary, the Non-Detention Act (18 U.S. Code, Sec. 4001 (1), that prohibits the military from detaining an American citizen without an Act of Congress. The law, enacted in 1971, repealed the 1950 Emergency Detentions Act, that empowered the Attorney General to detain, during an invasion, insurgency, or declared war, individuals whom the Attorney General thinks might commit sabotage (sounds a little like the Patriot Act, doesn't it?). . .

The Court further found that Bush overstepped the Joint Resolution to wage war against terrorism, passed overwhelmingly by the Congress shortly after September 11. The government's attorneys argued that the resolution gave the President the power to detain persons in order to prevent future attacks of terrorism. The Court said that the plain language of the resolution did no such thing. It authorized action only against persons, states, or organizations that planned or participated in the September 11 attacks . . .

The court gave Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has control over Padilla, 30 days to release him. In the interim, the court noted, federal prosecutors could again detain him as a material witness . . .