U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
In response to a commentary I wrote Tuesday about provisions in the defense funding bill some say would allow the detainment of Americans without due process rights, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., says the bill’s language “dovetails” with a prior U.S. Supreme Court ruling on indefinite detainment.
Pearce’s press secretary, Jamie Dickerman, sent this statement:
“Congressman Pearce fully agrees with what the Court actually ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which was that a U.S. citizen can be held as an enemy combatant provided that they are given the opportunity to protest their combatant status before a judge. Here is an actual quote from the introduction:
“‘We hold that although Congress authorized the detention of combatants in the narrow circumstances alleged here, due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decision maker.’
“So, the language of the (defense funding bill) actually sets up basic parameters for who can be detained, such as al-Qaeda members and those fighting our troops in combat, and with the language stating that it does not apply to U.S. citizens, it dovetails with what the Court found in Hamdi. Nothing in this bill overturns that or other legal precedent, such as John Walker Lindh, who was a U.S. citizen captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but taken to civilian court. Similarly, Jose Padilla was a citizen arrested on U.S. soil by civilian authorities, turned over indefinitely to military custody, then turned over for a civilian trial after the Bush administration found it would likely lose a writ of habeas corpus petition before the Supreme Court.”