A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the U.S. government has the right to designate U.S. citizens as “enemy combatants” and to jail them indefinitely without ever seeing an attorney. The court denied a hearing for the Louisiana-born man Yaser Esam Hamdi who has been held since November 2001.

In a dissenting decision, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote: “The panel’s decision marks the first time in our history that a federal court has approved the elimination of protections afforded a citizen by the Constitution solely on the basis of the Executive’s designation of that citizen as an enemy combatant.”