justice (?) department

The Justice Department told a federal appeals court Friday that terror suspect Jose Padilla's complaints about being held indefinitely as a "enemy combatant" are irrelevant now that criminal charges have been filed in Florida.
And, prosecutors said, it doesn't matter if the charges against Padilla don't include a previously alleged "dirty bomb" plot.
Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has announced that he is launching a formal probe of the Justice Department's handling of the Padilla case and may hold a public hearing.
Specter said Thursday: "I think there's a real question raised when you hold a citizen for three and a half years on a charge that he's going to explode a dirty bomb and then, when the Supreme Court is considering taking jurisdiction of the case, to withdraw. That troubles me."
hmm. . .me too.
The court asked the government to explain why a Miami grand jury's indictment made no mention of a "dirty bomb" plot and other allegations cited by the Bush administration to detain Padilla in a military brig for the past three and a half years.
Prosecutors explained: "The executive has determined that the demands of national security can now be adequately satisfied by charging petitioner criminally. The fact that those charges involve different facts from those relied upon by the president in ordering petitioner's military detention is not consequential."
umm, actually, it kind of does matter. . .a lot.