America's Prisoners, American Rights

From a constitutional standpoint, anyone detained by the U.S. government, regardless of citizenship, has a right to due process.

There is also good practical reason not to distinguish between the basic rights of citizens and foreign nationals. While the federal government has often introduced security initiatives by singling out foreigners, it has just as often sought to extend those tactics to citizens later. The suppression of subversive speech, for example, and race-based detention began as anti-alien measures. But they did not end there.

It used to take years to extend these tactics to American citizens. But things are speeding up. Today the Bush administration will defend its treatment of the Guantánamo detainees on the grounds that they are foreigners who do not deserve American legal protections. Next week, it will argue that it has just as much latitude to detain American citizens. The slippery slope has never been more slick.