The war on terror is not an armed conflict, and therefore internment without trial is illegal.  The war on terror is not like past, conventional conflicts, and the government should not be able to take wartime powers simply on its own declaration. The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 were horrific, but they did not threaten the entire life of the American nation - the economy has rebounded surprisingly quickly and no one believes that even a successful attack on the White House or Congress would have ended American democracy. Separate from warfare therefore, interment without trial is clearly illegal – as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states, ‘everyone has the right to liberty and security of the person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention’1. If it can be agreed upon that human rights are universal, internment without trial outside of the protocols on warfare is illegal. Furthermore, the war on terror is not winnable - there is no likely endpoint at which we will be able to declare an enemy to have been defeated and so allow detained "enemy combatants" to go home - so these harsh but supposedly temporary wartime measures will become the norm.  1. Davis, 2004. p4