President Bush has authority as commander in chief to order the indefinite imprisonment of American-born terror suspects without second-guessing by federal judges, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court yesterday.
Justice Department lawyers set the stage for a landmark courtroom battle in Virginia on Monday, telling the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond that a federal judge in Norfolk did not have the authority to conduct an inquiry into the president's decision to imprison Yaser Esam Hamdi as an "enemy combatant" without charges, a lawyer or a trial.
