http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/04/28/enemy.combatants.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court was told Wednesday that President Bush has overstepped his authority by jailing American citizens suspected of links to terrorism and denying them access to lawyers and courts.
Justices were hearing back-to-back cases about the detentions of a former Chicago gang member and the son of an oil industry worker from Saudi Arabia, in the court’s most far-reaching review to date of individual rights and liberties in a time of terrorism and war.
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But Bush administration attorney Paul Clement argued that a president as commander in chief has wide latitude under constitutional law to detain suspected terrorists as “enemy combatants” if they pose a national security risk.
“It has been well established, and long established, that the government has the authority to hold unlawful enemy combatants … in order to prevent them from returning to the field of battle,” he said.