The detention of an unnamed U.S. citizen held by the military as an enemy combatant is increasingly a legal and human-rights emergency, national security lawyers and civil libertarian activists say—and a bellwether case for the unsettled question of what terrorism captures in Donald Trump’s administration will look like.
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romero, wrote on Friday to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to urge the U.S. citizen’s transfer to civilian custody, calling his military detention “unlawful as a matter of domestic law.”
“The course you take with respect to the U.S. citizen in Defense Department custody is a critical test for this administration’s adherence to the rule of law,” Romero wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Beast. “I accordingly urge you to transfer him to the United States and the federal criminal justice system without delay.”