Fourth Circuit Reads Congress' AUMF Broadly As Authorizing Detention of US Citizens Seized in the U.S.

The right's efforts to fill the courts with rightwing ideaologues continues to payoff. The Fourth Circuit has just ruled in the Jose Padilla case that the President can detain even a U.S. Citizen seized in the United States pursuant to a broad reading of Congress' Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution (the "AUMF").

The Fourth Circuit reads the statute in a manner Congress did not have the courage to so state specifically and, in effect, provides coverage for conservative congressmen who may have desired this result but whom did not want to face the consequences at election time of having given the President explicit written authorization to detain U.S. citizens seized in the U.S., and not on a foreign battlefield.

The right, when it came to Civil Rights legislation, used to state that you do not search out congressional intent in broad and ambiguous language but simply put the onus back on Congress to make a more specific statement. However, as Fourth Circuit Judge Michael Luttig shows here ... it is really more of a result oriented effort than one based on principle.