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

Heading: The Authority to Detain

Text: I begin with the district court's denial of al-Marri's motion for summary judgment based upon its determination that, assuming the allegation of the Rapp Declaration to be true, the President possessed legal authority under the AUMF to detain al-Marri as an enemy combatant in the war against al Qaeda even though al-Marri had successfully crossed our borders and was residing within this country at the time of his seizure. See Al-Marri, 378 F.Supp.2d at 680. Al-Marri asserts that the President lacks legal authority to designate and detain him as an enemy combatant because he was taken into custody in the United States and, as a result, enjoyed civilian status and its accompanying rights to full criminal process for his alleged wrongdoing. The government counters that both the AUMF and the President's inherent constitutional authority allowed for the detention.
As pointed out by my colleagues, the Constitution generally affords all persons detained by the government the right to be charged and tried in a criminal proceeding for suspected wrongdoing, and it prohibits the government from subjecting individuals arrested inside the United States to military detention unless they fall within certain narrow exceptions. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 755, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987) (In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception.). The detention of enemy combatants during military hostilities, however, is such an exception. If properly designated an enemy combatant pursuant to legal authority of the President, such persons may be detained without charge or criminal proceedings for the duration of the relevant hostilities. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 519-521, 124 S.Ct. 2633, 159 L.Ed.2d 578 (2004). The Supreme Court first considered the breadth of the AUMF's grant of such authority in Hamdi, a case which originated from this circuit. Hamdi was captured by our allies in Afghanistan and turned over to our military personnel there. When it was discovered that he was a United States citizen by birth, Hamdi was transported to the United States for continued detention here. A plurality of the Court ruled that individuals who fought against the United States in Afghanistan as part of the Taliban, an organization known to have supported the al Qaeda terrorist network responsible for [the 9/11] attacks, are individuals Congress sought to target in passing the AUMF. Id. at 518, 124 S.Ct. 2633. Although the AUMF did not specifically authorize such military detention, the plurality conclude[d] that detention of individuals falling into the limited category we are considering, for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured, is so fundamental and accepted an incident to war as to be an exercise of the `necessary and appropriate force' Congress has authorized the President to use. Id. ; see also id. at 519, 124 S.Ct. 2633 (Because detention to prevent a combatant's return to the battlefield is a fundamental incident of waging war, in permitting the use of `necessary and appropriate force,' Congress has clearly and unmistakably authorized detention in the narrow circumstances considered here.). Because Hamdi was part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition partners in Afghanistan and who engaged in an armed conflict against the United States there, id. at 516, 124 S.Ct. 2633 (internal quotation marks omitted), the plurality concluded that, even though he was a United States citizen detained within this country, he clearly fell within the legal category of those enemy combatants who may be detained. However, in the course of rejecting Hamdi's claim that his citizenship prohibited his detention as an enemy combatant, the plurality also recognized the Court's precedent in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 63 S.Ct. 1, 87 L.Ed. 3 (1942), which held that `[c]itizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of ... the law of war.' Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 519, 124 S.Ct. 2633 (quoting Quirin, 317 U.S. at 37-38, 63 S.Ct. 2). This court also considered the scope of the AUMF in Padilla v. Hanft, 423 F.3d 386 (4th Cir.2005), albeit in a somewhat different context. There we held that the AUMF was broad enough to authorize the military detention of Jose Padilla, a citizen of this country who is closely associated with al Qaeda, an entity with which the United States is at war; who took up arms on behalf of that enemy and against our country in a foreign combat zone of that war; and who thereafter traveled to the United States for the avowed purpose of further prosecuting that war on American soil, against American citizens and targets. Id. at 389. In so holding, we also relied upon the Supreme Court's decision in Quirin, which dealt with the military trial of Haupt, a United States citizen who entered th[is] country with orders from the Nazis to blow up domestic war facilities but was captured before he could execute those orders. Id. at 392. Noting that, [l]ike Haupt, Padilla associated with the military arm of the enemy, and with its aid, guidance, and direction entered this country bent on committing hostile acts on American soil, we held that Padilla falls within Quirin 's definition of enemy belligerent, as well as within the definition of the equivalent term [enemy combatant] accepted by the plurality in Hamdi.  Id. We concluded: The Congress of the United States, in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution, provided the President all powers necessary and appropriate to protect American citizens from terrorist acts by those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. As would be expected, and as the Supreme Court has held, those powers include the power to detain identified and committed enemies such as Padilla, who associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban regime, who took up arms against this Nation in its war against these enemies, and who entered the United States for the avowed purpose of further prosecuting that war by attacking American citizens and targets on our own soil  a power without which, Congress understood, the President could well be unable to protect American citizens from the very kind of savage attack that occurred four years ago almost to the day. Id. at 397. Accordingly, we reversed the district court's determination that the detention of Padilla by the President was without legal support, necessitating additional proceedings below. [4]
Like my colleagues, I agree that neither Hamdi nor Padilla compels the conclusion that the AUMF authorized the President to detain al-Marri as an enemy combatant, although they do provide guidance. I disagree, however, that Ex Parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 18 L.Ed. 281 (1866), compels the opposite conclusion. Having carefully considered these cases, as well as the Supreme Court's decision in Quirin, I am of the opinion that the AUMF also grants the President the authority to detain enemy combatants who associate themselves with al Qaeda, an entity with which the United States is at war, and travel[ ] to the United States for the avowed purpose of further prosecuting that war on American soil, against American citizens and targets, even though the government cannot establish that the combatant also took up arms on behalf of that enemy and against our country in a foreign combat zone of that war. Padilla, 423 F.3d at 389 (emphasis added).
As accurately pointed out by my colleagues, the alleged enemy combatants in Hamdi and Padilla were affiliated with the military arm of an enemy government, specifically the Taliban government of Afghanistan. By virtue of the alleged combatant's affiliation with the Taliban government, neither court was required to decide whether their affiliation with al Qaeda and, in the case of Padilla, the mission to carry out additional terrorist acts within this country, would also have supported their detention as enemy combatants. In my opinion, however, there is no doubt that individuals who are dispatched here by al Qaeda, the organization known to have carried out the 9/11 attacks upon our country, as sleeper agents and terrorist operatives charged with the task of committing additional attacks upon our homeland are [also] individuals Congress sought to target in passing the AUMF. Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 518, 124 S.Ct. 2633. Citing the right of the United States to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad,  the AUMF authorized the President's use of all necessary and appropriate force against the nations and organizations that planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11 attacks, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States. 115 Stat. 224. Clearly, Congress was not merely authorizing military retaliation against a reigning foreign government known to have supported the enemy force that attacked us in our homeland, but was also authorizing military action against al Qaeda operatives who, like the 9/11 hijackers, were sent by the al Qaeda organization to the United States to conduct additional terror operations here. As persuasively pointed out by the government, it was the 9/11 attacks which triggered the passage of the AUMF. The al Qaeda operatives who successfully carried out those attacks entered this country under false pretenses for the purpose of carrying out al Qaeda orders and, while finalizing the preparations for these attacks, maintained a facade of peaceful residence until the very moment they boarded the commercial airliners that they used as weapons. The hijackers never engaged in combat operations against our forces on a foreign battlefield. Yet al-Marri would have us rule that when Congress authorized the President to deal militarily with those responsible for the 9/11 attacks upon our country, it did not intend to authorize the President to deal militarily with al Qaeda operatives identically situated to the 9/11 hijackers. There is nothing in the language of the AUMF that suggests that Congress intended to limit the military response or the presidential authorization to acts occurring in foreign territories, and it strains reason to believe that Congress, in enacting the AUMF in the wake of those attacks, did not intend for it to encompass al Qaeda operatives standing in the exact position as the attackers who brought about its enactment. Furthermore, Congress has not revised or revoked the AUMF since its enactment or since the Supreme Court decided Hamdi. I am also unpersuaded by the claim that because al Qaeda itself is an international terrorist organization instead of a nation state or enemy government, the AUMF cannot apply, consistent with the laws of war and our constitutional guarantees, to such persons. The premise of that claim seems to be that because al Qaeda is not technically in control of an enemy nation or its government, it cannot be considered as anything other than a criminal organization whose members are entitled to all the protections and procedures granted by our constitution. I disagree. In my view, al Qaeda is much more and much worse than a criminal organization. And while it may be an unconventional enemy force in a historical context, it is an enemy force nonetheless. The fact that it allied itself with an enemy government of a foreign nation only underscores this point, rendering attempts to distinguish its soldiers or operatives as something meaningfully different from military soldiers in service to the Taliban government (or al Qaeda operatives such as Hamdi and Padilla, who fought beside them) equally strained. The President attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan as retaliation for al Qaeda's strike upon our nation because al Qaeda was centralized there and allied with the Taliban, and it also strains credulity to assert that while we are legitimately at war with the Taliban government, we cannot be at war with al Qaeda. In sum, the war that al Qaeda wages here and abroad against American interests may be viewed as unconventional, but it is a war nonetheless and one initially declared by our enemy. See Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 296 F.3d 278, 283 (4th Cir.2002) (noting that [t]he unconventional aspects of the present struggle do not make its stakes any less grave); Padilla, 423 F.3d at 389 (noting that al Qaeda is an entity with which the United States is at war). The members of this enemy force come from different countries and they are positioned globally. They fight us with conventional weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they have also infiltrated our borders and those of our allies, bent on committing, at a minimum, sabotage and other war-like acts targeting both military and civilian installations and citizens. While they do not hail from a single nation state, they are not really so dissimilar from the multi-national forces united against the United States and its allies in the conventional wars that we are more comfortable discussing. And when they cross our borders with the intent to attack our country from within on behalf of those forces, they are not appreciably different from the soldiers in Quirin, who infiltrated our borders to commit acts of sabotage against our military installations here  although as history and intelligence inform us, al Qaeda soldiers target not only our military installations, but also the citizens of this country. Nor does it matter that they have not actually committed or attempted to commit any act of depredation or entered the theatre or zone of active military operations. Quirin, 317 U.S. at 38, 63 S.Ct. 2. When they enter this country with hostile purpose, they are enemy belligerents subject to detention. Id. In my view, limiting the President's authority to militarily detain soldiers or saboteurs as enemy combatants to those who are part of a formal military arm of a foreign nation or enemy government is not compelled by the laws of war, and the AUMF plainly authorizes the President to use all necessary and appropriate force against al Qaeda. I believe this necessarily includes the detention of al Qaeda operatives who associate with the enemy, be that the al Qaeda organization or the Taliban government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts. Id. at 37-38, 63 S.Ct. 2. Accordingly, I find it unnecessary to reach the question of whether the President possesses inherent authority to detain al-Marri.
If the allegations of the Rapp Declaration are true, I am also of the view that al-Marri would fall within the category of persons who may be lawfully detained pursuant to the authority granted by the AUMF. According to Rapp, al-Marri was not simply a civilian who lawfully entered the United States and was residing peacefully here while pursuing a higher educational goal. Nor, for that matter, was he a civilian who became sympathetic to al-Qaeda's mission and sought to support it in indirect ways. And he was certainly not a common criminal bent on committing criminal acts for personal reasons or gain. On the contrary, the allegations are that al-Marri directly allied himself with al Qaeda abroad, volunteered for assignments (including a martyr mission), received training and funding from al Qaeda abroad, was dispatched by al Qaeda to the United States as an al Qaeda operative with orders to serve as a sleeper agent, and was tasked with facilitating and ultimately committing terrorist attacks against the United States within this country. Unlike the al Qaeda operatives who preceded him, al-Marri was unsuccessful in his mission. But with this exception  owing to the efforts of our federal authorities here  he would not be appreciably different from either the German soldier dispatched here to attack military installations in Quirin or the al Qaeda operatives dispatched here to attack this country on 9/11. As noted by the magistrate judge, [a]ssuming ... that all of the facts asserted by [the government] are true, [al-Marri] attended an al Qaeda terror training camp and later, on September 10, 2001, entered this country to continue the battle that the September 11th hijackers began on American soil. J.A. 123. For these reasons, I agree that, assuming the allegations of the Rapp Declaration to be true, al-Marri would fall within the definition of an enemy combatant and that his military detention would be authorized pursuant to the AUMF.