Washington Post: Bush Bill a 'Rush to Error'

AFTER BARELY three weeks of debate, the Senate today will take up a momentous piece of legislation that would set new legal rules for the detention, interrogation and trial of accused terrorists. We have argued that the only remedy to the mess made by the Bush administration in holding hundreds of detainees without charge at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere since 2001 was congressional action. Yet rather than carefully weigh the issues, Congress has allowed itself to be stampeded into a vote on hastily written but far-reaching legal provisions, in a preelection climate in which dissenters risk being labeled as soft on terrorism.

...critical flaws remain. If these are not corrected, U.S. treatment of foreign prisoners is likely to remain a source of global controversy that undermines the war against terrorism. Senators -- and this includes Democrats who have been largely and cravenly absent from this month's debate -- would do best to postpone action on the bill.

Another hasty agreement over the weekend would allow foreign civilians in the United States or even U.S. citizens to be arrested and held without charge indefinitely on grounds that they "supported hostilities against the United States." This goes far beyond current case law, which reserves unlawful-combatant status for detainees engaged in an armed conflict against the United States or its allies.