The President's Nullification Power

Among the most extraordinary powers claimed by both President Bush and President Obama as part of the post-9/11 "war on terrorism" is the power to nullify -- or ignore -- jury verdicts of acquittal in federal criminal cases involving terrorism.

They came to a screeching halt on 9/11, when President Bush, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon announced that they now possessed the power to treat suspected terrorists either as criminal defendants or as enemy combatants, at their option.

As part of that announcement, the president and the military quietly assumed the power to nullify -- that is, ignore -- federal-court jury verdicts of acquittal in terrorism cases and treat the acquitted person as an enemy combatant, including subjecting him to indefinite incarceration.'

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This Rampant Executive Must be Brought Under Control

This has been a week to provoke uncomfortable contemplation about the sort of country we are we now living in. We have learned that the Home Secretary, aided by civil servants, grossly exaggerated the security threat posed by a leak from her department, prompting the police to arrest an opposition MP. The Government has conceded that the surveillance powers it granted to local councils have been used to spy on innocent members of the public. And yesterday it emerged that Ian Tomlinson, who was assaulted by a police officer at the G20 protests in London earlier this month died not from a heart attack but abdominal bleeding. The common imprint on each of these stories is that of the unaccountable and rampant executive arm of the British state.

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