Nat Hentoff thankfully will not let up on the Yaser Hamdi case. Read his new column in the Village Voice titled, George W. Bush's Constitution: Does It Take a Lifetime to Question a Man? Hentoff begins,

The imprisonment of "enemy combatant" Yaser Esam Hamdi in a naval brig in the United States is not a matter of concern to most Americans, since they do not know of Mr. Hamdi's isolation from the Bill of Rights, and might not care if they did. But the Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether George W. Bush's Constitution will replace—in significant parts—the Constitution that most Americans are also not familiar with.

He quotes from the excellent amicus brief filed on behalf of Hamdi by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL):

Another point, this one entirely ignored by the media, is in an amicus brief to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers: [The government claims] that Mr. Hamdi 'surrendered' not to U.S. forces, but to a group of counter-insurgent Afghanis popularly called the 'Northern Alliance.' However, [the government then proceeds] to repeatedly claim that Hamdi was 'captured'—an important distinction when evaluating his legal status vis-à-vis the United States and under international law. One who surrenders before engaging in 'combat' can hardly be classified as a 'combatant' logically, much less legally."

Hentoff ends his column with

I will follow this case through the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and then, I expect, to the United States Supreme Court. Those nine men and women will decide whether the essential liberties in the Framers' Constitution have been removed by George W. Bush. It's a pity the Democratic Party cares much less about civil liberties than about Bush's tax cuts.

Hentoff is no liberal, but he is a staunch supporter of civil liberties, and we appreciate his dedication to the preservation of constitutional rights for all persons.

The issue in the Hamdi case essentially concerns the detaining of American citizens as so-called "enemy-combatants" when no criminal charges are brought, when Congress has not officially declared a war, and when they have not been declared "prisoners of war." Is it legal for the President, as chief executive, on his own to withold basic constitutional rights from these people, such as the right to consult with a lawyer?

The Judge in the case, Richard Doumar, has previously opined in a written order,

"This case appears to be the first in American jurisprudence where an American citizen has been held incommunicado and subjected to an indefinite detention in the continental United States without charges, without any findings by a military tribunal, and without access to a lawyer."

The Government may be using Hamdi as a test case to see just how far it can go. Let's hope the courts keep them on a tight leash.