Plea Pressure

Of all the powers claimed by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, the authority to unilaterally declare someone an "enemy combatant" and lock him up indefinitely may be the creepiest. The administration's defenders say we shouldn't worry, because this power has been used only a couple of times (that we know of). But the case of Iyman Faris, the would-be Brooklyn Bridge saboteur, suggests how this end run around the justice system can have an effect far beyond the people who are officially labeled enemy combatants.

According to The New York Times, "Prosecutors discussed the idea of declaring Mr. Faris an enemy combatant…and that may have influenced his decision to admit guilt to avoid the prospect of indefinite detention." I have no reason to doubt that Faris, who pleaded guilty and faces a 20-year prison sentence, really did discuss the Brooklyn Bridge's vulnerability to blowtorches with members of Al Qaeda. But it's not hard to see how someone who was mistakenly accused of terrorism might choose a finite prison sentence over "enemy combatant" limbo.

The only protection against this danger is the Justice Department's ability to distinguish the bad guys from people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Given the FBI's handling of immigrants who were detained in connection with the 9/11 investigation, infallibility on this score may be too much to expect.