Stolen from ThinkProgress

Complete post:

In a “major setback” to President Bush’s terrorism detention policies, a federal appeals court ruled today that the administration “cannot legally detain a U.S. resident it believes is an al-Qaida sleeper agent without charging him.”

In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn’t strip Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court.

It ruled the government must allow al-Marri to be released from military detention.

Al-Marri has been held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., since June 2003. The Qatar native has been detained since his December 2001 arrest at his home in Peoria, Ill., where he moved with his wife and five children a day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to study for a master’s degree.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country,” the court panel said.

UPDATE: Read the full decision HERE. Human Rights First has an overview of the case.

UPDATE II: Via ACSBlog, SCOTUSBlog explains what comes next:

[T]he panel concluded, it would grant al-Marri habeas relief, though not immediate release. It said the government had accused him — though not with formal charges — of “grave crimes.” The case was returned to a federal judge in South Carolina with instructions to order the Pentagon to release al-Marri from military custody “within a reasonable period of time to be set by the District Court. The Government can transfer al-Marri to civilian authorities to face criminal charges, initiate deportation proceedings against him, hold him as a material witness in connection with grand jury proceedings, or detain him for a limited time pursuant to the Patriot Act. But military detention of al-Marri must cease.”

How strange it is that the justice system in this country is against the Bush administration. I mean why should detaining someone without charge be illegal? And since when do enemy combatants get to defend themselves? You'd think we lived in the United States of America again. Maybe we still do.
In all seriousness, I'm glad to finally see these detainees given their day in court. With the military tribunals refusing to convict some to the federal courts enforcing habeus corpus and the right to legal counsel, I finally feel like some aspect of our government really does care about our freedom. Protecting it here so we don't have to spread it over there.