[theknife]

my local paper did a nice editorial take on this story:

A president, not a dictator

We're still free. A president of the United States can't throw us behind bars and keep us there just because he wants to.

A federal judge – a judge whom President George W. Bush appointed to the bench – ruled Monday that the president has "no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory," to keep an American in jail without filing criminal charges and trying to prove he's guilty.

That was fine news for Jose Padilla, but even better news for the rest of us. Our fundamental rights as free people have been reaffirmed.

The government has held Mr. Padilla for three years without charging him. Federal agents suspect him of plotting to set off a "dirty bomb" in the United States.

Maybe he did. But if the government doesn't have the evidence to try him, said Federal District Judge Henry F. Floyd, it has to let him go.

The Bush administration says it will appeal, but its chances don't look good. The U.S. Supreme Court freed another suspect in a case in which the government had a better argument.

Judge Floyd observed that to accept the government's contentions would "not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and individual liberties."

Moreover, he said, it would "totally eviscerate the limits placed on Presidential authority to protect the citizenry's individual liberties."

One of Mr. Padilla's lawyers said the ruling "confirms our belief that the Constitution is alive and well and kicking. The system works."

Eventually. And so far.

Jose Padilla may be a dangerous American. But if he can be thrown into prison without charge and left there to rot, so can you.

If the president doesn't understand that, Judge Henry Floyd does.