Government has argued that Padilla’s [US citizen] detention is justified by the president’s war powers [... just trust Bush!]

Lawyer challenging terror policy: "By MARY E O'LEARY | Journal Register News Service

12/26/04 -- 'The Herald' -- NEW HAVEN -- It's the biggest case in his legal career, but attorney Jonathan Freiman has never met his client -- a man held for the past two years in solitary confinement without being charged.

At stake, says Freiman, is the very definition of our basic constitutional rights.

The Yale-trained lawyer will standbefore a federal court in South Carolina early next month and defend someone many people are repulsed by and consider not worthy of constitutional protection.

Freiman, a lawyer with Wiggin and Dana in New Haven, will represent Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born man the government has declared an al-Qaida-trained terrorist bent on killing as many innocent Americans as he could. In recently declassified documents, the Justice Department alleges that Padilla, 33, a Muslim convert of Puerto Rican heritage, who has a wife and children in Egypt, was involved in al-Qaida plots to set off a radiological "dirty bomb" or blow up apartment buildings in New York, Florida or Washington.

The government has argued that Padilla’s detention is justified by the president’s war powers and the congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks authorizing him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against those who planned or aided the attacks.

"I guess my own fundamental beliefs are that if you think someone has done wrong, you have to charge them with that wrong and give them a fair chance to prove that it’s not true," Freiman said. ...