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On June 11, a federal appeals court ruled that the president may not indefinitely imprison a U.S. resident on suspicion alone. The ruling comes in the case of enemy combatant Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who was living in Peoria, Illinois, as a university student when he was arrested in 2001. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, claimed that Marri was a member of a sleeper cell in the United States, preparing for a set of terrorist attacks.
In its 2 to 1 decision in the Marri case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit argued that the Constitution protects both citizens and residents from unchecked military power and arbitrary imprisonment. "The President cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant ...