EDITORIAL
War on terror doesn't preclude civil rights

Hours after one federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Bush administration doesn't have unchecked authority to arrest a U.S. citizen in the United States, label him an "enemy combatant" and hold him incommunicado indefinitely, a second federal appeals court asserted that the 660 foreign prisoners being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should have access to lawyers and American courts.

These opinions will be seen as temporary setbacks to the Bush administration's war on terrorism because they focus on narrow, technical issues.

But broader, authoritative interpretation is widely expected in the coming months by the U.S. Supreme Court.

That the courts are involved at all, however, is a major triumph for civil libertarians, because the administration had attempted to bypass the courts.

"The president's most solemn obligation is protecting the American people," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, referring to the responsibility of preventing another attack similar to those of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the president is no less obligated to the rights of individuals. In its Guantanamo opinion, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that in times of national emergency, "it is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike."

Whether these two opinions will stand is not nearly as important as the fact that they have irrevocably involved the judiciary branch in a matter that had — improperly and frighteningly — been subject only to executive branch fiat.