The Bush administration's lawyers are currently arguing before the Supreme Court their right to seize and detain any American citizen they see as a threat to the United States. President Bush's lawyers are claiming that he has the right to authorize “indefinite executive detention” without oversight by Congress or the Judiciary.
President Bush is using the “War on Terror” to undermine the checks and balances in the US Constitution that prevent this country from becoming a dictatorship. He is attempting to bypass the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment right of habeas corpus, and the Fourth Amendment right prohibiting the unreasonable search and seizure of American citizens.
But President Bush is not just asking for the right to arrest a citizen. If he wins this case, he'll have the legal authority to snatch people secretly in the middle of the night and make them disappear. It's the kind of thing for which they hold remembrance days in South America. [Democrats & Liberals Watchblog]