Article: Appeals court doubts legality of U.S. citizen as enemy combatant; Judge says Congress must make the designation

NEW YORK (AP) - An appeals judge Monday said it would be "effecting a sea change" in the Constitution to endorse President Bush's designation of a U.S. citizen suspected in an al-Qaida dirty bomb plot as an enemy combatant.

In a critical showdown between the government and civil rights lawyers, Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. seemed hesitant to embrace the government's reasoning for why Jose Padilla, 33, should be held indefinitely without access to the courts.

Parker said he believed the power to designate a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant rested with Congress, rather than the president, and that its suggested use in the war against terrorism was "breathtaking in its sweep."

"Were we to ...

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