After three years, Padilla gets a chance to face his accuser

The United States government has finally decided to do the right thing in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who has been held incommunicado for three years, although the Justice Department probably isn't acting with the best of motives.
It appears that the government has finally moved to bring criminal charges against Padilla and give him an opportunity to defend himself only because it feared allowing his case to go to the Supreme Court, at least at this time.
Padilla was held under an expanded reading of the presidential powers in time of war. President Bush has maintained that it is within his power to declare someone an "enemy combatant" and by that declaration hold the person indefinitely -- without criminal charges and without explanation.
The policy obliterates a person's constitutional right to due process of law, to a public trial and to the right to face his accuser. It is a dangerous precedent to be established -- dangerous obviously to whomever might find himself declared an enemy combatant, but dangerous as well to a country that holds itself out to the world as a nation of laws and a beacon of freedom.
The dirty bomber
Padilla was originally accused of being part of an Al-Qaida plot to blow up U.S. hotels and apartment buildings and allegedly planned an attack on America with a radiological "dirty bomb." He has been held in a Navy brig since shortly after his arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in 2002.
As we have said before, Padilla was no saint He was a former Chicago gang member and thug who converted to Islam while doing prison time. And the indictment returned by a Miami grand jury alleges that Padilla, who was arrested as he arrived home from Pakistan, was part of a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap overseas and provided material support to terrorists. He could face life in prison if convicted.
And that's fine with us, if he's convicted. But under the enemy combatant theory espoused by the Bush administration, he could have faced life in prison without ever being charged with a thing.
The president often refers to the war on terrorism, and that is an apt description, and surely a politically powerful one. But Congress has not declared war, nor has the president declared a state of emergency. These can be frightening times, but they should not be so frightening as to encourage suspension of the Constitution. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who give up their freedom for security deserve neither.
Dodging the deadline
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appears to think that finally charging Padilla makes legal arguments about his enemy combatant status moot. The government had faced a deadline today for filing its brief in a suit seeking Padilla's release.
The case should go forward, because absent a ruling by the Supreme Court anyone could be picked up tomorrow, classified as an enemy combatant and held for years while the arguments started anew in the courts. Besides, Gonzales has not declared that Padilla is no longer considered an enemy combatant subject to indefinite detention; he has only said that at this point in time the government is justifying its detention of Padilla based on specific and public criminal charges.
If the government failed to convict Padilla, it might well throw him back in the brig -- setting in motion again a process that could take years to work its way back through the Supreme Court.
We should expect our government to show a higher respect for the law than that. The court should decide the enemy combatant issue now.