Come On Baby Take A Chance With Us...

"As I said before, this is war without end, and if we don't watch it, an enemy combatant determination can be a de facto life sentence because there will never be an end to these hostilities probably in my lifetime."
-- Sen. Lindsay Graham, Congressional Record Debate (.PDF), November 17, 2011

It was a nice 230 year experiment, wasn't it?

This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
-- Jim Morrison, The Doors, 1967

Defense Attorney Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft Sunday, in a comment on her post about the Defense Authorization Bill...

The defense department wrote objecting to the provision (see here at p. 17 .PDF)

See also, Feinstein,p. 31 and Levin p. 40 and Levin, p. 40

So the law of the land is that if you are captured overseas, even if you are an American citizen, you can be held as an enemy combatant and questioned by our military with no right to proceed to a criminal venue. It is not a choice to try them or let them go. You can hold an unlawful enemy combatant for an indefinite period of time just like you could hold any other enemy prisoner in any other war. But what we have done differently in this war is we have said: Our courts will review the military's decision to declare you as an enemy combatant in a habeas procedure--not a criminal trial but a habeas procedure--as to whether there is sufficient evidence to label you as an unlawful enemy combatant.

...the law of the land by the Supreme Court is that an American citizen can be held as an enemy combatant. Like every other enemy combatant, they have habeas rights, but they don't have the right to say: Try me in a civilian court or military commission court, because when we capture someone, the goal is to gather intelligence.

Levin dances around 1032 some more here.

SEC. 1032. (b) - the worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision attached to S. 1867, the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act states...

   (b) Applicability to United States Citizens and Lawful Resident Aliens-

        (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.

        (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.

Peter G - one of Jeralyn's lawyer friends - comments on Sec. 1032 with...

...to say that something is not "require[d]" by the law does not by any means say that is it prohibited; to the contrary, it would seem that indefinite military detention of alleged "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror" who are U.S. citizens is in fact authorized, albeit not required in every case, by this bill. Subsection (b)(2) (re: LPRs) is just flat out meaningless. No statute can authorize anything that is unconstitutional, and simply to say so (which is all that (b)(2) does) is nothing but self-evident, misleading doubletalk.