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

Heading: the aumf authorizes the detention of al-marri.

Text: On September 18, 2001, one week after the most devastating attack on the U.S. homeland in its history, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The plurality recognizes  as it must  that the AUMF authorizes the President to order the military detention of enemy combatants. See ante at 228-29 (Motz, J., concurring in the judgment). The plurality also notes that the primary issue before us in this case is whether the petitioner, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, is an enemy combatant within the meaning of the AUMF. See ante at 221-22. Despite spending much of its opinion interpreting the AUMF, however, the plurality barely discusses the AUMF's purpose, so plainly reflected in its text: to hold those responsible for the September 11th attacks accountable, and to prevent similar acts of terrorism from ever happening again. This omission is telling. By failing to appreciate the entire reason for the AUMF, the plurality is able to produce an incredible result: it interprets the AUMF so that even the 9/11 attackers themselves would not be considered enemy combatants under it. The plurality's conclusion is a paradox without parallel. A resolution designed to address a problem is read to leave the problem unaddressed. The reach of a resolution responding to hijacked domestic flights aimed at domestic targets and designed to inflict massive domestic casualties is confined to a foreign battlefield. In holding that the 9/11 hijackers would not be enemy combatants within the meaning of the foremost congressional response to 9/11, the plurality denies the legislative branch the ability to mean what it says. It deprives not only this congressional action of effect, but, in essence, grants the judiciary an expanding veto over future congressional efforts to protect this country. To appreciate fully the error of the plurality's ways, one need consider nothing more than the AUMF itself, which, in the more than six years since its passage, has never been amended, much less rescinded: [T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized,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. AUMF, Pub.L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). The AUMF grants the President broad power: the power to use  all necessary and appropriate force to prevent  any  future acts of terrorism by those who perpetrated the September 11th attacks and their affiliates. The President's power is not limited temporally: he may use force against those who planned 9/11 as well as those who prepare future acts of terrorism. Nor is the President's power limited geographically: the preamble of the AUMF specifically directs the President to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad.  Id. (emphasis added). Finally, recognizing the new security risks presented by global terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda, and global terrorists, such as Osama bin Laden, the AUMF authorizes the President to use force against not only the nations, but also the organizations and persons, that were responsible for the September 11th attacks. Al-Marri does not so much as dispute the allegations against him, which we are obliged therefore to credit for purposes of this case. See ante at 217, 221. According to the Rapp Declaration, in which the government details the evidence supporting the detention of al-Marri as an enemy combatant, al-Marri was closely associated with al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that perpetrated the September 11th attacks. Al-Marri attended an al Qaeda terrorist training camp in Afghanistan for fifteen to nineteen months, and subsequently cultivated relationships with the most senior members of the al Qaeda organization: he met personally with Osama bin Laden and volunteered to martyr himself for the al Qaeda cause; he entered the United States as a sleeper agent under the direction of Khalid Shaykh Muhammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks; and he received substantial funding for his mission from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the financial facilitator of 9/11. Id. at 220. And that is not all. Al-Marri was actively planning terrorist attacks at the time of his arrest in the United States. Before he was apprehended, al-Marri had been gathering technical information about poisonous chemicals on his laptop, and was in communication with both Muhammed and al-Hawsawi. Id. Moreover, he had undertaken efforts to obtain false identification, credit cards, and banking information, including stolen credit card numbers. Id. It should be clear that al-Marri is the paradigm of an enemy combatant under any reasonable interpretation of the AUMF. When Congress directed the President to use all necessary force  including the power of military detention  to prevent any future attacks by those organizations responsible for 9/11, it must certainly have targeted al Qaeda sleeper agents planning similar attacks in the United States. To say that Congress did not have persons such as al-Marri in mind is to say that Congress had very little in mind at all. In what I suppose is intended as a criticism, the plurality says I would give full effect to the broad language of the AUMF. Ante at 244-45. But of course. Judges take and treat with respect what Congress gives them. I do not pretend that there are not hard cases under the AUMF: for example, if the President were to detain an alleged terrorist with more tenuous links to al Qaeda or more ambiguous intentions than al-Marri has. There are indeed difficult questions as to the reach of the authority Congress has conferred upon the President. But the possibility of hard cases does not hide the fact that this case fits squarely within the bounds of the AUMF. Al-Marri was indisputably a member of al Qaeda, and he was indisputably planning terrorist attacks to kill American citizens and destroy American property. If al-Marri is not an enemy combatant under the AUMF, then who is? The plurality's view also rests on four faulty premises. First, the plurality erroneously asserts that al-Marri cannot be considered an enemy combatant because the government has never alleged that he is a member of any nation's military [or] has fought alongside any nation's armed forces. Ante at 217 (emphasis added). The plurality bases this nation affiliation requirement on a misguided reading of the Supreme Court's opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 124 S.Ct. 2633, 159 L.Ed.2d 578 (2004) (plurality op.), and our circuit's opinion in Padilla v. Hanft, 423 F.3d 386 (4th Cir.2005), which relied heavily on Hamdi. According to the plurality, a relationship with the Taliban, the de facto government of Afghanistan at the time, ante at 228, was critical to each court's ultimate holding that the petitioner could be classified as an enemy combatant. Thus, the plurality contends, absent such an affiliation with an enemy nation, an individual cannot qualify as an enemy combatant. Ante at 229-30, 231 (asserting that enemy combatant status rests on an individual's affiliation with the military arm of an enemy nation). The plurality's nation affiliation requirement finds no basis in the text of the AUMF, misreads the opinions in Hamdi and Padilla, and fails to recognize the backdrop against which the AUMF was passed. As noted earlier, the AUMF states quite explicitly that the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons  responsible for the September 11 attacks. AUMF, 115 Stat. 224 (emphasis added). Thus, the plurality's notion that enemy combatants under the AUMF must be affiliated with a nation at war with the United States flatly contradicts the AUMF's text. Furthermore, the plurality erroneously limits the scope of the holdings in Hamdi, and therefore Padilla. According to the plurality, under these two cases, affiliation with the military arm of an enemy nation  is a necessary condition for being labeled an enemy combatant under the AUMF. Ante at 230 (emphasis added). Of course, the petitioners in both Hamdi and Padilla were at one time affiliated with Taliban units in Afghanistan. See ante at 228, 229. However, neither the Hamdi Court nor the Padilla court made this fact the lynchpin of its decision. For instance, in Hamdi, the Supreme Court made very clear that its decision only answered the narrow question of whether the detainee, based on the facts alleged, could be classified as an enemy combatant. Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 516, 124 S.Ct. 2633. The Court never indicated that those facts circumscribed the outer bounds of the enemy combatant category. Id. at 517, 124 S.Ct. 2633. In fact, Hamdi specifically noted that the permissible bounds of the [enemy combatant] category will be defined by the lower courts as subsequent cases are presented to them. Id. at 522 n. 1, 124 S.Ct. 2633. If the facts alleged in Hamdi were, as the plurality suggests, binding requirements for enemy combatant status, then the Court's observation and directive to lower courts would have been unnecessary. Thus, any claim that Hamdi sets forth the exclusive requirements of the enemy combatant category has a problem: it cannot be reconciled with the Court's own statements. Finally, the plurality's nation affiliation requirement ignores the context in which Congress passed the AUMF. When interpreting legislation that authorizes the use of force against both nations and organizations, I struggle to find any meaningful distinction between affiliating with a so-called de facto government, like the Taliban, and affiliating with a terrorist organization like al Qaeda. This is particularly true given the fact that, in many ways, it is impossible to distinguish al Qaeda from a de facto government: [It] has a standing army; it has a treasury and a consistent source of revenue; it has a permanent civil service; it has an intelligence collection and analysis cadre; it even runs a rudimentary welfare program for its fighters, and their relatives and associates. It has a recognizable hierarchy of officials; it makes alliances with other states; it promulgates laws, which it enforces ruthlessly; it declares wars. Philip Bobbit, The Shield of Achilles 820 (2002). The second faulty premise of the plurality is the erroneous claim that al-Marri does not qualify as an enemy combatant because he was not allegedly seized on, near, or having escaped from a battlefield on which the armed forces of the United States or its allies were engaged in combat. Ante at 220 (emphasis added). This purported battlefield requirement is also based on the plurality's mistaken interpretation of Hamdi and Padilla. See ante at 228 (noting that Hamdi was captured on a battlefield); id. at 229-30 (noting that Padilla had been on a battlefield). Although I will discuss the relevance of the battlefield in more detail later, it suffices for now to say that the plurality's battlefield requirement also does not comport with the text of the AUMF, relevant case law, or the context in which the AUMF was enacted. It is every bit as much a gloss on the AUMF as the nation affiliation requirement is  and every bit as misplaced. To begin, the text of the AUMF is in no way restricted to those persons who have fought or seen action on a foreign battlefield. As mentioned earlier, the AUMF contains no such location limitation and specifically states that its animating purpose is to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad.  AUMF, 115 Stat. 224. While the plurality attempts to support its conclusion that the AUMF was not meant to operate right here in the United States with statements made by members of Congress more than four years after the passage of the AUMF, see ante at 239, I would hope the judicial branch would respectfully bypass post-hoc commentary by distinguished members of the legislative branch intended either to expand or restrict or otherwise reinterpret what Congress plainly expressed and just as plainly stands by. Next, although Hamdi and Padilla had seen action on a battlefield, such a factor represents a potentially sufficient condition, not a necessary one, for qualifying as an enemy combatant under those cases. An absolute requirement that someone must have been on a battlefield in order to receive enemy combatant status would run headlong into Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 63 S.Ct. 2, 87 L.Ed. 3 (1942). In that case, the Nazi saboteurs were not captured on or near a battlefield, but rather in the United States, after surreptitiously entering from enemy territory into our own. Id. at 35, 63 S.Ct. 2. The Court held that even though they had not entered the theatre or zone of active military operations, i.e. the battlefield, the saboteurs were properly detained as enemy combatants. Id. at 38, 63 S.Ct. 2. Finally, the notion that enemy combatants can only be found on the battlefield is completely antithetical to Congress's purpose for passing the AUMF. The September 11th hijackers targeted civilians on American soil, not a foreign battlefield. The thousands slaughtered in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and aboard United Flight 93 were not on any battlefield. To condition the enemy combatant category on battlefield participation is simply wrong. Third, the plurality appears to be influenced by the fact that the length of the current struggle has no bounds and thus the current detention may be an indefinite one. See ante at 252. I do appreciate the plurality's concern in this regard. No formal armistice with al Qaeda or its offshoots is in the offing, and while 9/11 marked the beginning of widespread awareness that we were at war, no similarly defining event is likely to mark the end. But as much as I respect the plurality's concern on this point, I cannot ultimately accept it, because it is tantamount to an assertion that Congress should have repealed the AUMF or limited its duration, which Congress has not done. There is in fact nothing in the text of the AUMF that limits the duration of its operational force  it applies both retrospectively to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice and prospectively to prevent future attacks. And as noted, Congress has not repealed the AUMF or modified its language in any way. I am not prepared to second guess its judgment. There is evidence that al Qaeda, which has announced an intent to launch further attacks upon America, is not a degraded force but a reconstituted one, operating, among other places, in the Waziristan regions of northwest Pakistan. See, e.g., Scott Shane, Same People, Same Threat, N.Y. Times, July 18, 2007, at A1. Whatever the case may be, it is surely within the ambit of constitutional judgment for Congress to conclude that the AUMF should continue in effect and that an ongoing threat must be met with an ongoing resolution. Until the AUMF undergoes some change from the body that enacted it, the courts must honor its express intent. To approach this war on terror otherwise would allow separation of powers in this long-protracted struggle to fall victim to a short judicial attention span. The plurality's fourth faulty assumption is that Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 18 L.Ed. 281 (1866), precludes a determination that al-Marri is an enemy combatant under the AUMF. The plurality contends that Milligan's conduct mirror[s] the Government's allegations against al-Marri. Ante at 237. But this overlooks the basic difference between the two cases: Congress never authorized the use of military force against the Sons of Liberty, Milligan's organization, see Milligan, 71 U.S. at 6, but Congress has authorized the use of force against al Qaeda, al-Marri's organization, see AUMF, 115 Stat. 224. Milligan 's constitutional force is felt only after it has been determined the individual may not be classified as an enemy combatant. See Quirin, 317 U.S. at 45, 63 S.Ct. 2. Because al-Marri plainly qualifies as an enemy combatant under the AUMF, the principles of Milligan do not preclude detention here. Similarly, al-Marri argues that the Patriot Act's detention provisions supersede, and therefore abrogate, the President's authority under the AUMF to detain enemy combatants. See Brief of Appellants at 14-15. The plurality wisely rejects this contention, recognizing that the Patriot Act does not eliminate the statutory authority provided the President in the AUMF to detain individuals who fit within the legal category of enemy combatant. Ante at 241 (internal quotation marks omitted). Al-Marri's argument properly fails because the AUMF and Patriot Act have different spheres of operation. While the AUMF represents a specific response to the 9/11 attacks, authorizing military force against those responsible for the attacks, the Patriot Act has a different point of emphasis: providing law enforcement with additional tools and tactics  such as an increased ability to access records, regulate financial transactions, and perform surveillance  designed to prevent terrorism generally, regardless of whether the suspect was associated with 9/11. See Pub.L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001). Thus, to the extent that there is even a hint of potential conflict, the AUMF undoubtedly controls in the present situation as it alone specifically addresses military detention in response to the 9/11 attacks. Therefore, like Milligan, the provisions of the Patriot Act are relevant only after it has been determined an individual does not constitute an enemy combatant  not before. The particular errors in applying the AUMF lead to one transcendent flaw. By failing to give proper effect to the AUMF, the plurality has simply assumed the authority belonging to the legislative branch. The plurality states that Congress has not issued the particularly clear statement... necessary to authorize al-Marri's detention, ante at 238-39, but Congress has expressed its intentions quite plainly and emphatically, and to require more is to simply move the goal posts on the legislature. Courts cannot, under the guise of interpretation, require Congress to do what Congress has already done. To do otherwise vitiates the long accepted approach of Justice Jackson in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952). See Samuel Issacharoff & Richard H. Pildes, Between Civil Libertarianism and Executive Unilateralism: An Institutional Process Approach to Rights During Wartime, 5 Theoretical Inquiries L. 1, 5-6 (2004) (explaining that the Court has long followed the Youngstown approach when faced with questions concerning the scope of the executive's wartime authority); Cass R. Sunstein, Minimalism at War, 2004 Sup.Ct. Rev. 47, 83 (same). Under that rubric, the legality of executive action is fortified by congressional approval: [w]hen the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, while, conversely, the President's power is at its lowest ebb when he takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 635-37, 72 S.Ct. 863 (Jackson, J., concurring). With its decision in this case, the plurality, in the guise of interpreting the AUMF, has stood the Jackson approach on its head. In doing so, it has ushered in a novel constitutional arrangement: now, rather than the judiciary respecting the lead of the elected branches in the most consequential of all democratic decisions  those of life and death during periods of war  the elected branches are told they must once more take steps they have already taken to protect the nation. One searches Youngstown for the slightest hint of imprimatur for this new arrangement  but it is nowhere to be found. In Youngstown, the Court declared President Truman's seizure of the nation's steel mills unconstitutional, despite the President's contention that the seizure was a necessary wartime measure. Id. at 583, 72 S.Ct. 863 (Opinion of the Court). While this demonstrates that the judiciary has a role, even during wartime, in making sure that the executive does not exceed its authority, one must not forget the force behind the Supreme Court's decision: the fact that, as even President Truman conceded, his actions were not taken pursuant to a congressional authorization. Id. at 638, 72 S.Ct. 863 (Jackson, J., concurring); see also id. at 585, 72 S.Ct. 863 (Opinion of the Court) (Indeed, we do not understand the Government to rely on statutory authorization for [the] seizure.). Youngstown has thus always stood for the proposition that the judiciary serves as an important check on the executive's power when it acts without legislative approval. What was absent when President Truman seized the nation's steel mills is present here: clear and explicit legislative approval of the executive's actions. By ignoring the plain text of the AUMF, the plurality ignores the teachings of Youngstown and negates the synchronized action of the President and Congress. It does this despite the fact that it is difficult to conceive of an area of governmental activity in which the courts have less competence than military affairs. Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 10, 93 S.Ct. 2440, 37 L.Ed.2d 407 (1973); see also Benjamin Wittes, Law and the Long War 103-04 (2008) (noting that the judiciary's capacity to design the kind of creative policies America needs in this conflict is exceptionally limited); Mark Tushnet, Controlling Executive Power in the War on Terrorism, 118 Harv. L.Rev. 2673, 2679 (2005) (arguing that federal courts lack the capabilities necessary to determine whether some particular response to a threat to national security imposes unjustifiable restrictions on individual liberty or is an unwise allocation of decisionmaking power). Thus, the plurality's approach is not only constitutionally problematic and patently undemocratic. It is dangerously unsound.