March 16, 2009 4:16PM # Monday Podcast: ‘Challenging Domestic Military Detentions’ --- SHARE ![410px-ali_saleh_kahlah_al_marri](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/wp-content/uploads/410px-ali_saleh_kahlah_al_marri.jpg?itok=Cbs9JrS6) Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the exchange student from Qatar who was detained by the FBI with alleged ties to al-Qaeda, sat for years in a military brig in South Carolina as the only domestically detained enemy combatant. The Bush Administration used al-Marri to test a legal theory aimed at keeping suspected terrorists in military prisons indefinitely. President Obama has reversed that ruling, and has moved al-Marri into civilian courts. The Supreme Court is no longer hearing al-Marri’s appeal. In Monday’s [Cato Daily Podcast](https://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/podcast-archive.php?podcast_id=854), Legal Policy Analyst David Rittgers says that there’s nothing that will stop future administrations from again reversing the policy. > This is creating this legal cul-de-sac where we can have military detention domestically…and the reason that they picked Al-Marri is, just as you would pick a sympathetic plaintiff to sue to overturn a law, if you want to keep a law…you would look for an unsympathetic defendant, and Al-Marri is as unsympathetic as you can get. > > > …He is the test case to keep this policy open. The Cato Institute co-authored an [amicus brief](https://www.cato.org/pubs/legalbriefs/al_marri_v_USN.pdf) (PDF) at the Supreme Court supporting al-Marri’s challenge to the military detention. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).