Opinion ID: 149930
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Standard of Detention

Text: The Government asserts the authority to detain Bensayah pursuant to the AUMF, in which the Congress authorized the President to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. As mentioned before, the Government contends it may lawfully detain an individual if he is part o f ' a1 Qaeda. Bensayah objects to this formulation, but we have made clear elsewhere that the AUMF authorizes the Executive to detain, at the least, any individual who is functionally part of a1 Qaeda. Barhoumi, slip op. at 29 (detainee was 'part o f an al-Qaida-associated force and therefore properly detained pursuant to the AUMF); Awad, slip op. at 19 (Once [a petitioner is shown to be] 'part o f a1 Qaeda ... the requirements of the AUMF [are] satisfied); Al-Bihani, 590 F.3d at 872-74. Although it is clear a1 Qaeda has, or at least at one time had, a particular organizational structure, see The 911 1 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States 56 (2004) ([Al Qaeda's] structure included as its operating arms an intelligence component, a military committee, a financial committee, a political committee, and a committee in charge of media affairs and propaganda), the details of its structure are generally unknown, see Audrey Kurth Cronin, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress: A1 Qaeda After the Iraq Conflict (2003) (There is a great deal that remains unknown or debatable about the specific nature, size, structure and reach of [a1 Qaeda]), but it is thought to be somewhat amorphous, Kenneth Katzman, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress: A1 Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment (2005) (A1 Qaeda has always been more a coalition of different groups than a unified structure, many argue, and it has been this diversity that gives A1 Qaeda global reach). As a result, it is impossible to provide an exhaustive list of criteria for determining whether an individual is part of' a1 Qaeda. That determination must be made on a case-by-case basis by using a functional rather than a formal approach and by focusing upon the actions of the individual in relation to the organization. That an individual operates within a1 Qaeda's forrnal command structure is surely sufficient but is not necessary to show he is part o f ' the organization; there may be other indicia that a particular individual is sufficiently involved with the organization to be deemed part of it, see Awad, slip op. at 19 (there are ways other than making a 'command structure' showing to prove that a detainee is 'part o f a1 Qaeda), but the purely independent conduct of a freelancer is not enough.