You have no rights - Padilla

Your rights are gone. A federal court has upheld that the executive branch of the government can imprison a US citizen detained on US soil indefinitely without trial, without disclosing any evidence, and even without charge.

I do not stand in defense of Mr. Padilla, I do not know whether what the government alleges is true or not. If there is any evidence, by all means, charge him, convict him, and execute him for treason. But when he was arrested, he had no bomb making plans, no weapon, no evidence of any kind other than the heresay of intelligence sources whose reliability cannot be questioned because there will be no trial.

Some source said he had plans, and now he is in a navy brig where he will remain at the whim of the president.

This is a US citizen. This could be you.

A federal appeals court Friday sided with the Bush administration and reversed a judge's order that the government charge or free "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has the authority to detain a U.S. citizen closely associated with al Qaida.

A federal judge in South Carolina had ruled in March that the government cannot hold Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," a designation President Bush gave him in 2002.

The government views Padilla as a militant who planned attacks on the United States, including with a "dirty bomb" radiological device.