Opinion ID: 1026199
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: As is now tragically well-known, on September 11, 2001, operatives of the al Qaeda terrorist network hijacked commercial airliners on the East Coast and launched an attack upon the United States, successfully striking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and crashing a third airliner, believed to have been bound for an additional target in Washington, D.C., in Pennsylvania. Approximately 3,000 civilians were killed as a result of these war-like attacks. One week after these devastating attacks, Congress passed the AUMF, providing that the President is authorized 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. Id. (emphasis added). The preamble to the AUMF references the President's authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, points to the continued unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the forces responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and declares that it is both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad.  Id. (emphasis added). Having determined that the 9/11 attacks were inflicted by operatives of al Qaeda who were sent to our country to attack us from within, and that al Qaeda was heavily supported and harbored by the Taliban government of Afghanistan, the President responded militarily against both entities by ordering our armed forces to Afghanistan. On September 10, 2001, the day before al Qaeda's devastating attack upon our homeland, al-Marri entered the United States from abroad with his wife and children, ostensibly for the purpose of pursuing a degree at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Two months later, FBI agents arrested al-Marri as a material witness in the investigation of the 9/11 attacks. In the course of their investigation, the authorities discovered that al-Marri was rarely attending his university classes and was failing his courses. Additional investigation resulted in al-Marri being charged with several federal criminal offenses. [1] Al-Marri pled not guilty and trial was set to begin in the district court of Illinois on July 21, 2003. On June 23, 2003, however, President George W. Bush declared that al-Marri is, and at the time he entered the United States in September 2001 was, an enemy combatant. J.A. 54. According to the presidential declaration, al-Marri is closely associated with al Qaeda, an international terrorist organization with which the United States is at war and engaged in conduct that constituted hostile and war-like acts, including conduct in preparation for acts of international terrorism that had the aim to cause injury to or adverse effects on the United States. J.A. 54. The President additionally declared that al-Marri possesses intelligence, including intelligence about personnel and activities of al Qaeda that, if communicated to the [United States], would aid [United States'] efforts to prevent attacks by al Qaeda on the United States or its armed forces, other governmental personnel, or citizens, and that he represents a continuing, present, and grave danger to the national security of the United States. J.A. 54. Accordingly, the President declared that the detention [of al-Marri] is necessary to prevent him from aiding al Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States or its armed forces, other governmental personnel, or citizens and that it is in the interest of the United States that the Secretary of Defense detain [him] as an enemy combatant. J.A. 54. In the wake of this declaration, the government successfully moved to dismiss the criminal indictment pending in the district court of Illinois, asserting national security interests required that al-Marri be transferred from civilian to military custody. [2] Al-Marri was transferred to the custody of the Secretary of Defense and transported to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, where he has remained in military custody as an enemy combatant. On July 8, 2003, approximately two weeks after al-Marri was transferred from civilian to military custody, al-Marri's legal counsel filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the district court of Illinois challenging the President's designation and al-Marri's continued detention by the military. The petition was eventually dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, see Al-Marri v. Rumsfeld, 360 F.3d 707 (7th Cir. 2004), but re-filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. In his petition, al-Marri claimed that his military detention was unlawful, that the government was required to charge him with a crime or release him, and that the government abridged his due process rights. Al-Marri asserted that as a civilian lawfully residing in the United States, he was unlawfully detained by the military without basis, without charge, without access to counsel, and without being afforded any process by which he can challenge his detention or his designation as an enemy combatant. J.A. 21. [3] Al-Marri also demanded that a hearing be scheduled at which the government should be compelled to present evidence establishing that [al-Marri] is, in fact, an enemy combatant, and at which [al-Marri] is afforded an opportunity to challenge such designation with the assistance of counsel. J.A. 25. The government thereafter filed its response to al-Marri's petition, supported by a hearsay declaration of Jeffrey N. Rapp, identified as the Director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism (the Rapp Declaration). In this affidavit, Rapp professed to be familiar with the interviews of [al-Marri] conducted by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by personnel of the Department of Defense (DOD) once the DOD took custody of Al-Marri ... after he was declared an enemy combatant by the President. J.A. 213. The Rapp Declaration summarized the national intelligence and other federal investigative information upon which the President rested his determination that al-Marri was not simply a man bent on committing criminal activities for personal reasons or gain, but an al Qaeda operative or soldier dispatched to this country to perpetrate or facilitate additional war-like attacks in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. According to the Rapp Declaration, Al-Marri is an al Qaeda `sleeper' agent sent to the United States for the purpose of engaging in and facilitating terrorist activities subsequent to September 11, 2001, and possesses information of high intelligence value, including information about personnel and activities of al Qaeda. J.A. 216. Prior to his arrival in this country, he was trained at Bin Laden's Afghanistan terrorist training camps and, [a]mong other things, ... received training in the use of poisons at an al-Qaeda camp. J.A. 217. He met personally with Usama Bin Laden ... and volunteered for a martyr mission or to do anything else that al Qaeda requested. J.A. 216. The Rapp Declaration asserted that al-Marri was assisted in his al Qaeda assignment to the United States by known al Qaeda members, including [9/11] mastermind Khalid Shaykh Muhammed and al Qaeda financier and [9/11] moneyman Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hawsawi. J.A. 216. He traveled to the United States with money provided for him by al Qaeda for the purpose of carrying out his assigned mission. In response, al-Marri asserted that, even if the allegations were true, the President lacked authority to detain him as an enemy combatant. However, al-Marri also denied the factual allegations supporting his classification and asserted that he was entitled to a fair opportunity to rebut the factual assertions on which his classification as an `enemy combatant' [was] based and to an evidentiary hearing conducted consistent with the fundamental requirements of due process, including, most importantly, the right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him. J.A. 69. According to al-Marri, [a]nything less would make his right to due process illusory. J.A. 69. As discussed in more detail below, the district court rejected al-Marri's assertion that the President lacked the authority to detain him as an enemy combatant, see Al-Marri v. Hanft, 378 F.Supp.2d 673 (D.S.C. 2005), and, in a later decision, dismissed al-Marri's habeas petition based upon its determination that he had failed to rebut the allegations upon which his designation rested, see Al-Marri v. Wright, 443 F.Supp.2d 774 (D.S.C.2006). On appeal, al-Marri challenges the district court's determination that the President can detain him as an enemy combatant and, in the alternative, asserts that he was not afforded a meaningful opportunity to contest his status. I address each issue in turn.