>You state that the prisoners held as "unlawful combatants" (itself of extremely dubious legalality) are foreigners and therefore it is legitimate for the US to practice internment against them. Would your opinion change if US citizens were subject to the same procedures?

Actually, I didn't write that it's legitimate.

>Jose Padilla is a US citizen and has just been picked up at Chicago airport, immediately being classified as "enemy combatant", thus denying him judicial review or access to legal advice.

I am glad to see that the judge in the other case came down hard on the U.S. Justice Department and demanded that Padilla be allowed to see a lawyer. While I sympathize with the Justice Department on wanting to protect us, the guy does have rights.

>There is an argument that because the US is essentially at war, desperate measures are required. I suspect that nobody would disagree with that basic principle but many of us would prefer that if the laws need to be changed, then change rather than ignore them.

I don't think the law has been changed in the case of people classified as "enemy combatants". Although I am not a lawyer, apparently the law goes back to post World War II and the rights of German prisoners. Since the Germans were not U.S. citizens and were not captured or detained on U.S. soil, they could not use the U.S. courts.

>In the UK, new laws have been enacted in the wake of 9-11 and many people have been charged under them. Regardless of whether one agrees with the specifics of the laws, they were publicly debated and created by our lawmakers and include due process, access to legal counsel and public trials.
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>The US is once again practicing internment and by showing its disdain for even basic due process, risks further alienation. Very few countries today practice detention without trial and it grieves me that the current US administration seems happy to belong to that particular club.

FWIW, I don't like it either.