Can the U.S. government lock you up & throw away the key?

Pacific Views asks that and catches me reflecting

That's the question at the center of Jose Padilla's appeal to the US Supreme Court. Padilla has been held by the feds for more than three years. Originally with no charges, more recently on charges that he received training from al-Qaida and then planned to detonate a 'dirty bomb' in the US.

The dirty bomb charge came after their original charge of plotting natural gas explosions smelled.

The conservative libertarian CATO Institute had filed a friend of the court brief in support of Padilla. (PDF)

Padilla wasn't involved in any active plot to launch a dirty bomb in Washington or anywhere else. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz later explained: "There was not an actual plan."

There is a possibility that charges against Padilla may have to be dropped as they came from secret interrogations of al-Qaida leaders, which now appear to have involved torture.

One person held and tortured by 'friendly to the West' Arab secret police under orders of UK and US intelligence officers said Padilla was one of the people they were asking about and he agreed to anything they said - after "one of them made cuts in my penis."