The Necessary Evil of Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: ...

Chapter 1

Introduction

We need to debate the long-term sustainable architecture for the process of determining when, why, and for how long someone may be detained as an enemy combatant, and what judicial review should be available.

—Michael Chertoff ¹

Mr. Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security, made this statement in 2003 when he was a federal appellate judge. As of this writing, the United States still does not have an architecture in place for “when, why, and for how long” someone, including U.S. citizens, can be detained as enemy combatants. While this war on terror has encompassed many policies such as warrantless surveillance, data mining, coercive interrogation, and a preemptive war in Iraq—and certainly many articles and books have been and will continue to be written about the aforementioned topics—this book focuses on one aspect of the war on terror: the labeling of U.S. persons as enemy combatants.