Michael Cardenas wrote:

I think you're overreacting a bit. The actual case involves someone who was in a foriegn country for years, and was in the war zone at the time he was fighting the US.

Hey, I'm not a USAan and I don't even live there. But I think I know your Constitution well enough to know that I never read the bit about how long you have to live in a foreign country to lose your rights. The argument is just the same as the one we're always using about crypto or security. The system is as strong as it's weakest link. If there are 2 doors to your house you need to lock them both. Someone, somewhere, has to decide whether this man's service in a foreign army is naughty enough to lose him his constitutional rights. If *that* decision-making process has weaker legal protection than a normal criminal trial would have had, the effect is that the legal protection of the whole system is reduced. If the process of removing someone's constitutional rights is not itself subject to those rights, then those rights are hollow and can be removed at will. Ken Brown