[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 8, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1074]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PROPER PERSPECTIVE ON THE PADILLA CASE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 8, 2004

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, the Justice Department recently 
released information about the alleged offenses of Jose Padilla, 
described by the Deputy Attorney General as ``a trained, funded, and 
equipped terrorist.''
  If the allegations are accurate--and I have no reason to doubt them--
that description seems very apt. But that cannot be the end of the 
story.
  That's because, as the Rocky Mountain News notes, Jose Padilla is 
something else as well--``an American citizen who was arrested on U.S. 
soil two years ago and who thus enjoys, or should enjoy, certain 
rights--including the right to either be charged with a crime or freed 
from detention.''
  But, as the same editorial correctly points out, ``Instead, he still 
faces no charges, and the legality of his imprisonment awaits a ruling 
by the U.S. Supreme Court.''
  When this case was considered by the Supreme Court, the 
Administration argued that by passage of Public Law 107-40, a 
resolution ``to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against 
those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United 
States,'' Congress authorized such detentions. But as one who voted for 
that resolution, I disagree with that interpretation of its terms.
  Here, too, I share the view of the Rocky Mountain News that ``surely 
Congress did not mean to grant the executive branch unchecked 
discretion over the imprisonment of Americans for as long as the war 
against Islamic jihadists continues. That would amount to the 
suspension of a fundamental right for years--perhaps for generations, 
for all we know.''
  And I share the hope that the Supreme Court will ``reaffirm the right 
of citizens--every citizen--to full and timely access to legal counsel 
and the judicial system. And that includes even those who may have been 
in league with international terrorists and who planned to blow up 
high-rise apartment buildings on their behalf.''
  For the benefit of our colleagues, I attach the full text of the 
editorial cited above:

              [From the Rocky Mountain News, June 3, 2004]

                Padilla's Plots Don't Negate his Rights

       We are perfectly willing to entertain the likelihood that 
     the Justice Department's latest portrayal of alleged 
     terrorist Jose Padilla is accurate, including the monstrous 
     plan to blow up high-rise apartment buildings. Padilla met 
     with top al-Qaida leaders, according to Deputy Attorney 
     General James Comey, discussed detonating a ``dirty bomb'' in 
     the United States and finally agreed to a scheme involving 
     apartment buildings. He would rent rooms in several 
     complexes, seal them and fill them with natural gas, and 
     detonate them all at once.
       Padilla is ``a soldier of our enemy, a trained, funded and 
     equipped terrorist'' who accepted ``an assignment to kill 
     hundreds of innocent men, women and children,'' Comey told 
     reporters this week, and the description sounds about right. 
     But Padilla is something else, too: an American citizen who 
     was arrested on U.S. soil two years ago and who thus enjoys, 
     or should enjoy, certain rights--including the right to 
     either be charged with a crime or freed from detention. 
     Instead, he still faces no charges, and the legality of his 
     imprisonment awaits a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
       With its latest revelations, the Justice Department 
     obviously is seeking to influence public opinion and perhaps 
     even the court itself, although we don't begrudge it the 
     attempt. But the new information fails to alter the basic 
     problem with designating U.S. citizens arrested in this 
     country as ``enemy combatants'' for purposes of removing them 
     from normal criminal justice procedures and then 
     interrogating them over lengthy periods of time without 
     benefit of counsel. If the president's say-so is enough to 
     have kept Padilla in custody for two years without a criminal 
     charge, then nothing in principle prevents any one of us from 
     the same fate. Federal agents have been known to arrest the 
     wrong people, after all, and then to resist admitting their 
     mistakes.
       Fortunately, Padilla's case is apparently unique in the war 
     on terror, despite routine claims that the Bush 
     administration tramples indiscriminately on constitutional 
     rights. Another U.S. citizen who also has been held in a Navy 
     brig without normal access to counsel, Yaser Esam Hamdi, was 
     captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance. He too 
     deserves full constitutional protections, in our view, but 
     there is at least some sense in which being arrested at 
     O'Hare Airport and then held incommunicado for months on end, 
     as Padilla was, is more worrisome for civil liberties than 
     being treated in the same fashion after capture in a foreign 
     combat zone.
       We realize courts in this nation's past have said Congress 
     has the authority to suspend certain civil liberties during 
     wartime emergencies. Moreover, a congressional joint 
     resolution passed after 9/11 authorized the president ``to 
     prevent any future acts of international terrorism against 
     the United States.'' But surely Congress did not mean to 
     grant the executive branch unchecked discretion over the 
     imprisonment of Americans for as long as the war against 
     Islamic jihadists continues. That would amount to the 
     suspension of a fundamental right for years--perhaps for 
     generations, for all we know.
       No, the Supreme Court must reaffirm the right of citizens--
     every citizen--to full and timely access to legal counsel and 
     the judicial system. And that includes even those who may 
     have been in league with international terrorists and who 
     planned to blow up high-rise apartment buildings on their 
     behalf.

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