(5) Congress authorized the President on Sep-
tember 18, 2001, to use all necessary and appro-
priate force against those nations, organizations, or 
persons that he determines to have planned, author-
ized, committed, or aided the September 11 terrorist 
attacks or harbored such organizations or persons, 
in order to prevent any future acts of international 
terrorism against the United States, within the 
meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolu-
tion. 
(6) The United States and its allies are en-
gaged in armed conflict with al Qaeda. 
(7) Al Qaeda and its terrorist allies have a 
presence in more than 60 nations around the world, 
including the United States. United States citizens 
and residents have been detained as enemy combat-
ants in the struggle against al Qaeda. 
(8) The term ‘‘enemy combatant’’ has histori-
cally referred to all of the citizens of a state with 
which the Nation is at war, and who are members 
of the armed force of that enemy state. Enemy com-
batants in the present conflict, however, come from 
many nations, wear no uniforms, and use unconven-
tional weapons. Enemy combatants in the war on 
terrorism are not defined by simple, readily apparent
criteria, such as citizenship or military uniform. And 
the power to name a citizen as an ‘‘enemy combat-
ant’’ is therefore extraordinarily broad. 
(9) There is precedent for detaining American 
citizens as enemy combatants. In Ex Parte Quirin, 
317 U.S. 1 (1942), 2 of the 8 German soldiers who 
planned acts of sabotage within the United States 
claimed American citizenship. Detention of enemy 
combatants who are United States citizens is appro-
priate to protect the safety of the public and those 
involved in the investigation and prosecution of ter-
rorism, to facilitate the use of classified information 
as evidence without compromising intelligence or 
military efforts, to gather unimpeded vital informa-
tion from the detainee, and otherwise to protect na-
tional security interests. 
(10) The Executive must be allowed broad lati-
tude to establish by regulation and Executive order 
the process, standards, and conditions in which a 
United States citizen or lawful resident may be de-
tained as an enemy combatant. Courts must give 
broad deference to military judgment concerning the 
determination of enemy combatant status, POW sta-
tus, and related questions.
(11) Section 4001(a) of title 18, United States 
Code, provides that ‘‘no citizen shall be imprisoned 
or otherwise detained by the United States except 
pursuant to an Act of Congress’’. Section 4001 was 
designed to repeal the Emergency Detention Act of 
1950, and ensure that there was a statutory basis 
for any detention. As Chief Justice Burger wrote in 
Howe v. Smith, 452 U.S. 473 (1981), ‘‘the plain 
language of section 4001(a) proscribes detention of 
any kind by the United States, absent a congres-
sional grant of authority to detain’’. 
(12) By this Act, the Congress authorizes the 
President to detain enemy combatants who are 
United States persons or residents who are members 
of al Qaeda, or knowingly cooperated with members 
of al Qaeda in the planning, authorizing, commit-
ting, aiding, or abetting of one or more terrorist acts 
against the United States. 
(13) During wartime, a nation must take ex-
traordinary steps to protect itself, including meas-
ures that would never be acceptable during peace-
time. Nonetheless, ‘‘the Constitution of the United 
States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war 
and in peace, and covers with the shield of its pro-