No blank check.

Byline: The Register-Guard

A core premise of government under the rule of law is that the executive branch cannot by itself have the power to imprison citizens - or even noncitizens - indefinitely without access to lawyers, courts or other bedrock legal rights. Regardless of how serious the allegations or whether this nation is at war, the government's accusations against individuals cannot be accepted on faith, and their truth must be decided by independent judges.

The Bush administration believed otherwise. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush claimed the right to treat captured terrorist suspects as ``enemy combatants'' and to deprive them of their liberty - indefinitely, if necessary - without charges or trials.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected this breathtaking arrogation of power, ruling that the government must adhere to the rule of law even in the midst of a war on terror. ``We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens,'' Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote. Even in wartime, the Constitution ``assuredly envisions a role for all three branches (of government) when individual liberties are at stake.''

The court ruled in separate cases involving two U.S. citizens - Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla - declared enemy combatants by President Bush and another case involving nearly 600 foreigners held at a U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In the Hamdi case, justices ruled that he must be given ``a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis'' of his detention before a ``neutral decision maker.'' The administration argued that it was justified in holding Hamdi incommunicado because Congress, shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, approved a resolution authorizing the use of military force against ``nations, organizations or persons'' engaged in terrorism. That interpretation no doubt came as a surprise to many members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, who voted for it but had no intention of repealing the Sixth Amendment, which expressly grants criminal defendants the right to a public trial.

In the Guantanamo case, the court ruled that foreigners held at the U.S. naval base have the right to contest their detentions in U.S. courts with lawyers to help them. The administration argued that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over noncitizen detainees because they were being held in what amounts to a foreign land - the 45-square mile naval base in Cuba. Justices rightly rejected this legal mumbojumbo, declaring that even noncitizen detainees were "persons" under the Constitution and had the fundamentally American right to challenge their detentions at Guantanamo.

In a third case, the court decided that the case of Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant, had been filed in in the wrong jurisdiction and sent the case back without ruling on the merits. But Monday's ruling leaves little doubt that the court believes Padilla, like Hamdi, cannot arbitrarily be denied constitutional protections and should have a chance to tell a judge his side of the story.

Since Sept. 11, the administration has insisted there is no need for Americans to worry about people being deprived of their rights because the government can be relied upon to do the right thing. But recent events, from the revelations of abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to the release of more than two dozen prisoners, as well as several minors, from Guantanamo after military officials decided, two years after they were imprisoned, that they weren't terrorists after all, should remind Americans to be wary whenever this or any other government says "just trust us to do the right thing" and "never mind" to due process and other fundamental constitutional rights.

The significance of these rulings goes far beyond Hamdi, Padilla and the detainees at Guantanamo. If the court had ruled in favor of the administration, it would have meant that any citizen or no-citizen - at any place and any time - could be whisked away to indefinite military detention at the nod of a president. That's a recipe for intimidation and tyranny, one the Supreme Court wisely recognized as a threat to American freedom.